First Contact
by SlimReaper
Summary: Prequel to Alias. Optimus has had more graceful landings, that's for damn sure, but... maybe not better ones. Optimus/OC, Ironhide, Ratchet (grumpy, lovely Ratchet), Jazz, Bumblebee, whoever else talks to me. Snark, science, space, and giant robots-seriously, what could be better? Oh wait, I know-Optimus Prime being confused as all hell. Yeah, that's just fun. (Muirgen79's fault)
1. OFFLINE

_pain pain PAIN __**PAIN**_

… no, it wasn't pain. Optimus was no stranger to pain, but this was _agony_–throbbing, burning, scalding torment screaming through his circuits and processors, crashing over him from every shattered plate and node.

He hadn't hurt like this since… and he forced his optics online in panic, fully expecting to see a triumphant Megatron gloating over his wrecked body.

But no. The hazy, static-corrupted view confirmed that he was alone. He couldn't see far beyond the crater around him–_crater, that means crash, how did I crash?–_and strange hard ground sizzled beneath him–_I have encountered this not-metal before, this is, this is, what is this–granite, this is called _granite_, this is not Cybertron, where _am_ I? What happened?_ Forcing aside the pain as best he could, Optimus focused everything he had on that last question, and finally, slowly, information began to trickle in from heavily damaged systems.

CRITICAL COOLANT LOSS WARNING

REDUNDANT COOLANT SYSTEMS OFFLINE

CRITICAL TEMPERATURE WARNING

CRITICAL ENERGON LOSS WARNING

CRITICAL LOW POWER WARNING 12% SHUTDOWN AND RECHARGE URGENTLY ADVISED

BACKUP POWER SYSTEMS OFFLINE

T-COG 17% FUNCTIONALITY

CENTRAL PROCESSOR 23% FUNCTIONALITY

OPTICS 49% FUNCTIONALITY

AUDITORY SYSTEMS 61% FUNCTIONALITY

VOCAL PROCESSOR 73% FUNCTIONALITY

SPARK CHAMBER BREACHED

EMERGENCY DISTRESS SIGNAL OFFLINE

COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS OFFLINE

NAVIGATION SYSTEMS OFFLINE

WEAPONS SYSTEMS OFFLINE

INTERNAL SELF-REPAIR SYSTEMS OFFLINE

FURTHER INTERNAL ANALYSIS SYSTEMS OFFLINE

Optimus forced himself not to panic. Now that he was becoming used to the agony, he could feel the wetness of Energon leaking down the frame of his transition form in far too many places. Primus, how hard had he crashed to do this much damage to his transition form? It was _designed_ for re-entry and landing! But explanations could wait–stopping the bleeding couldn't. Without his internal self-repair systems online to send repair nanites to fix the broken Energon lines, the only hope he had was to find the worst of the leaks and try to crimp them with his fingers until Ratchet could find him. _Hands_, he needed his hands!

His first attempt to access his t-cog almost offlined him with agony, but the fear helped him hold onto consciousness–if he offlined now, he would likely bleed out before he could manage to reboot his system again. Optimus pushed his damaged cog harder and finally felt his transition form sluggishly respond. Doubting that he could manage a full transformation and unwilling to try lest he fully burn-out his cog, he focused all his efforts on his upper body, praying to Primus that he could at least access his arms and hands.

Plans helped to stave off panic and Optimus made one now. _Stop the bleeding, get out of this heat, survive until Ratchet finds me._ His Autobots had to have noticed his disappearance. He couldn't quite remember why he'd come to this planet or who had been with him, but Ratchet went nearly everywhere with him and he had to have faith that the medic had the Autobots searching for him right now.

His struggle to transform sent a shower of small particles over him, triggering another cascade of internal messages–

_soil composition 45% minerals composed of _ERROR TRACE MINERAL ANALYSIS OFFLINE_ 25% water 5% organic markers _ERROR LIFE FORM ANALYSIS OFFLINE_ 25% atmospheric compounds _ERROR TRACE GAS ANALYSIS OFFLINE

_atmosphere composed of ?% nitrogen ?% oxygen ?% unidentified trace gases searching known planets _ERROR PLANETARY ATMOSPHERIC DATABASE OFFLINE NO MATCH FOUND

–and he wondered if deleting the word OFFLINE from his internal dictionary would help before recognizing the insidious thread of hysteria in the thought. He clamped ruthlessly down on it. He'd been in worse situations than this (an internal voice whispered _but not many_) and survived. He would survive this one, but only if he could keep himself from glitching out with panic.

He barely bit back a scream as his head and one shoulder abruptly lurched out of the tangled wreck of his transition form, but he didn't let that stop him from immediately powering up his optics. The visual static cleared enough that he could actually see the sky when he looked this time, and thanking Primus that it was night on this world, he tried to orient himself by the visible stars to determine _where in the fragging pit _he was.

ERROR GALACTIC POSITIONING SYSTEM OFFLINE

ERROR STAR MAP DATABASE OFFLINE NO MATCH FOUND

Optimus was about to try out his vocal processor in a bout of cursing–at 73%, it was the most functional system he had so he might as well get _some_ good out of it–when he abruptly became aware that he was no longer alone.

A small… _something…_ stood at the edge of his crash crater, illuminated by starlight and flickers of fire. He'd never seen any life form like this one before–at least, he thought he hadn't, but his life form identification database was unsurprisingly offline, too. Much smaller than him, most of its body seemed to consist of a wide, flat torso covered in a single thick, leathery plate that might've been skin or might've been some kind of armor. Its arms were strangely proportioned, thin and long and oddly silvery, ending in large, blocky, visibly clumsy hands that were the same color and texture as its leathery brown body. Its legs were very short and ended in thick, sturdy feet. They looked much too large for it. Its head, a large, dark, squarish lump, also seemed too big for its narrow silver-coated neck to support. Optimus stared at it and it stared back, frozen.

Despite the expressionless blank panel that either covered or _was_ its face, Optimus could tell that it was as surprised to see him as he was to see it.

His arm suddenly popped free with a rending metallic screech and this time Optimus couldn't hold back a cry of pain. The life form flinched back at both sounds, but it didn't run away. Instead it said something to him in a language he didn't recognize–and when was the last time he had failed to recognize and understand any form of communication? But of course, his attempts to translate its speech resulted in an entirely expected message of

TRANSLATION SYSTEMS OFFLINE

What he didn't expect was the report of

CRITICAL HEAT LEVEL WARNING

WARNING HEIGHTENED INTERNAL FUEL IGNITION DANGER

and Optimus reached toward the little life form with his single hand in an instinctive plea. "Help me," he rasped.

He couldn't tell if it understood his words or his gesture. It made some kind of reply, a string of agitated syllables he couldn't begin to parse, waving both big clumsy hands at him.

And then it ran away.

For something with legs that stubby, it moved surprisingly fast, Optimus thought as it vanished over the lip of the crater and fled. Well, it was too much to hope that the little thing could do anything for him anyway, or would, for that matter. He clawed the ground and tried to drag himself out of the fire, hoping that he could somehow get away from the crash site before he detonated from overheating. His first attempt did little more than gouge a long gash in the soil, moving him only a few inches, but he reached out to try again. What else could he do?

WARNING URGENT INTERNAL FUEL IGNITION DANGER

He groaned–after URGENT came CRITICAL, and after CRITICAL came…

… _boom_.

Optimus spun his cog again on a surge of panic, desperate to free his other arm, but instead of doubling his chances of escaping the impact crater, he was hit with a wrenching pain, an alarm, and a new status of

T-COG DAMAGED 9% FUNCTIONALITY

and he snarled, frightened and frustrated and alternatively praying that Primus would somehow deliver him and cursing whatever had happened that landed him here in such a condition.

Suddenly the tiny life form was back, crawling up the loose dirt at the crater's edge and hauling a red canister that looked nearly half its size after it. Optimus ignored it, focusing on his increasingly frantic attempts to drag himself out of the fire. But before he could do more than clutch uselessly at the loose soil again, it aimed a nozzle at him and attacked.

He shouted with rage–couldn't it see that he was _dying? _The vicious little thing didn't have to help him along, all it had to do was _wait,_ for the love of Primus–but then the cloud of white foam hit him.

And it was _cold._ Excruciatingly, torturously, _blissfully_ cold.

Oh, Vector Sigma, this wasn't an attack. Somehow this strange creature had understood his most pressing problem and had brought this thing to cool him down. Optimus nearly collapsed with the intensity of his relief as the little thing sprayed the cold foam all over him, extinguishing the fires from his re-entry and painting him with frigid white. It hurt, _oh fragging slag_ it hurt, but it was exactly what he needed. His internal fuel ignition warning alarm trembled on the edge between CRITICAL and URGENT and Optimus braced his arm and forced himself up out of the dirt to expose his underside, hoping the creature would understand his silent request.

It did, immediately aiming the white foam beneath him, too. It seeped through the cracks in his armor, sending painfully cold foam inside to vaporize on the blazing-hot struts beneath–the pain was like nothing he'd ever experienced but he desperately needed to cool down and he made himself endure it. Abandoning his attempts at transformation lest he completely burn out his cog, Optimus tried to flare his armor as much as he could. He wasn't very successful, but the creature was very attentive, and it immediately shot a stream of foam beneath each panel he managed to move.

But it wasn't enough. His external panels were cooling but the most critical areas remained locked down and inaccessible. Optimus pushed hard and managed to turn completely over with a crash, chest up now, and tried with all his might to retract his chest armor and expose his spark chamber. This wasn't something he would ever have thought he'd do in front of a stranger, much less a life form he couldn't even identify, but he was going to die if he didn't get his core temperature down. His cog whined alarmingly and his chestplate stayed locked down. Finally abandoning the attempt at properly retracting his armor, Optimus dug his fingers beneath his chestplate and _pulled_.

The pain was immense as he ripped his own armor aside to expose the overheated circuitry beneath it, but that was nothing compared to the blinding agony of that icy foam splattering directly onto his white-hot spark chamber. He _screamed–_

WARNING VOCAL PROCESSOR OVERLOAD

–and blackness swallowed him whole.

.

**... what is this? This is Muirgen79's fault, that's what it is. This is, obviously, how Optimus met Anna, which means it's the story I swore up and down that I WAS NOT GOING TO WRITE. And now I'm writing it. It's going to be patchy, and flashbacky, and probably won't be updated in any kind of routine manner because my focus is still on Alias. But, it's here, because of a certain reviewer, and also because if I refer to some kind of memory or historical event in Alias, I always have to go write it so I know what I'm talking about. Therefore, why not let y'all know, too? **

**Let me know what y'all think and we'll all see what happens here together, shall we?**


	2. The Best Is First

**You were all so nice and enthusiastic about this that I decided to go ahead and post the second chapter–why the hell not, right? Thanks to those who reviewed–Muirgen79, who is still not sorry, HeartsGuardianSol, AlchemistPrime (still love your name and I'm glad this made your day better!), SunnySides (yay! I was going for exactly that kind of confusion as to what the hell was standing on the edge of his crater), Answerthecall (I love intensity, can't lie), twdgirls (I've been reading the IDW More Than Meets The Eye series and OMG grumpy Ratchet is the BESTEST), WolfAssassin369, Teddy Bear 007, MaddySan5926, TomateBastard, and Tatterrag Blue! Get comfy on that mushroom because here goes nothing…**

**.**

_reboot protocol start_

_systems check_

Optimus came back online slowly, optics flickering in stark surprise that he'd come back online at all. He was still in his partially-transformed state, but the pain was gone. A quick internal check took him from surprised to astonished.

LOW COOLANT LEVELS 54% OF NORMAL STABLE

REDUNDANT COOLANT SYSTEMS 73% FUNCTIONALITY

SYSTEM TEMPERATURE NORMAL

LOW ENERGON LEVEL 33% OF NORMAL STABLE

LOW POWER ADVISORY 26% RISING SHUTDOWN RECOMMENDED

EXTERNAL RECHARGE IN PROGRESS

BACKUP POWER SYSTEMS OFFLINE

INTERNAL SELF-REPAIR SYSTEMS 25% FUNCTIONALITY RISING

T-COG 83% FUNCTIONALITY

CENTRAL PROCESSOR 60% FUNCTIONALITY

WEAPONS SYSTEMS 79% FUNCTIONALITY

OPTICS 100% FUNCTIONAL

AUDITORY SYSTEMS 100% FUNCTIONAL

VOCAL PROCESSOR 100% FUNCTIONAL

EMERGENCY DISTRESS SIGNAL OFFLINE

COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS OFFLINE

NAVIGATION SYSTEMS OFFLINE

GALACTIC POSITIONING SYSTEM OFFLINE

NO FURTHER ALARMS

"Ratchet," he groaned, relief flooding him. That had been closer than he ever wanted to come to permanently offlining.

"Oh! You're awake!"

That… was definitely not Ratchet's voice.

Optimus powered up his optics–no static this time–and saw that he was no longer in a burning crater under the stars. A ceiling of some kind of organic material arched over him, not high enough for him to stand beneath it, but tall enough that he could sit comfortably. The space was wide, open, with large doors open at each end. Just outside one set of doors sat a tractor with a heavy chainfall attached. The other set opened into darkness.

And when he turned his head, he saw a small life form standing nervously beside him. He stared at it for a moment. It wasn't the same strangely ill-proportioned creature he remembered from before. This one was slightly shorter and far more slender, fully organic, no metallic parts visible on it at all. It stared at him with bright, intelligent eyes in a surprisingly delicate face as it clutched tiny versions of familiar tools in long-fingered, clever-looking hands.

_Human organic_, his database supplied, accessible once more. _Homo sapiens sapiens, resident species of planet Earth, moderately technologically advanced, aggressive, territorial, warlike, superstitious, xenophobic, caution strongly advised._

Optimus was just thinking that the little thing didn't look particularly dangerous when he belatedly realized that he'd understood what the human had said. Staring at it and finally able to access his memory banks, the last milliseconds before his crash now came back in a rush and he remembered seeing the brightly-lit little building and firing damaged boosters to avoid it. Was that this creature's home? "Did I hurt you?"

"Hurt _me?_" it echoed, surprised, and unless he was mistaken, this wasn't an _it_, it was a _she_. For a warlike species, she sounded more worried about him than he would've expected. "That's your first question?"

"The… fall. Crash," Optimus said with some difficulty–his vocalizer might be reading as fully functional, but his low power level still had him feeling very weak, and even with his translation systems back online finding the right words in an unfamiliar language wasn't easy. "Your… dwelling. The fire. Did I hurt you? Or the other one?"

She blinked at him, then shook her head. "No, it's all fine. You missed my house and I only got a few little burns." Then she stopped. "What other one?"

Optimus let his head fall back, too exhausted to hold it up any longer. "Small like you," he said, searching for the words. "Different shape. Dark head. Big… big hands."

"Oh," she said, and then she smiled. For an organic, it was a very nice smile. "No, big guy, that was me, too. Look." She pointed and he saw the leathery covering–a long apron, he now saw, which explained why her legs had seemed so short–the blocky helmet, silvery shirt, and thick gloves and boots hanging on some kind of rack on the wall with the oversized dark boots beneath it. "Heat-resistant protective gear. Sometimes I use it if I'm welding, or working with molten metal." Another smile. "Or going to investigate meteors in my front yard."

One of the systems that wasn't back online yet was his internal chronometer. "How long since I crashed?" he asked.

"About a day," she replied. "I–"

His gaze snapped to her again. _That long?_ "My Autobots," he said urgently, starting to struggle upright. "Where are my Autobots?"

"Easy, easy, calm down. I don't know what _Autobots_ is but if you tell me, I can try to find out for you," she said, holding up her hands and stepping back a little. She'd been cautious until now, but this was the first trace of fear he'd seen in those eyes, and Optimus forced himself to go still again. He didn't want to frighten the little thing away.

"Not what, who," he said, fighting a sinking feeling in his spark because if Ratchet had been the one to repair him, this human would _know _what Autobots were. And Ratchet and the others should've found him by now, nonfunctional emergency beacon or not. The medic would've seen him go off course and started looking for him immediately if he possibly could have. "Others… others like me."

She shook her head but didn't retreat any further. "I've never seen _anything_ like you. There aren't any others, at least not here."

He stared at her. His internal systems showed an improvement that his self-repair systems absolutely hadn't been capable of making and Ratchet wasn't here, so that could only mean– "Did… did _you_ repair me?"

She bit her lip, a surprisingly disarming gesture, and nodded. "I tried, anyway. I hope I did more good than harm. You're not, um, not leaking any more, at least."

No, he wasn't, but that was the least of the improvements she'd made. Apart from his low power level, he was almost completely functional. "How did you know how?" he asked as his internal HUD showed him that his self-repair system had now reached 35% functionality–per protocols, it would concentrate on repairing itself first, and then it would go to work on the rest of him.

"I didn't, not for sure. I guessed," she admitted. She was close now but didn't get any nearer. It was as if she sensed that this distance, not too close and not too far, was easiest for his optics to focus on her. "But it was an educated guess, at least. I'm an engineer with NASA–do you even know what that is?–and honestly, I thought you were a crashed military satellite until you spoke. Now I don't know what you are."

First contact. This was her species' first contact. He bit back a groan as more data on humanity downloaded from his repaired memory banks. Humans were a warlike species, destructive, violent, barely capable of the shortest feats of space travel, and the Galactic Council had emphatically disapproved them for inclusion in the interstellar community–their official position was _one race of Decepticons is enough._

Damn it, this was _not_ in the plan!

But then again, it was hard to believe that humanity was truly a savage, aggressive, xenophobic species when confronted with one this surprisingly… kind. She had no reason to help him at all, much less repair him to this degree–79% functionality of his weapons systems gave him more than enough firepower to subdue someone far stronger than this single organic. If he'd been found by a creature like the ones the Council described, it would have finished dismantling him to find out how he worked rather than stopping his bleeding and putting him back together.

And she was alone. His proximity detectors pinged no one but her within a mile, the furthest his still-damaged systems could read. She hadn't even made the slightest attempt to restrain him.

It was as though she… _trusted_ that he wouldn't repay her kindness with violence.

Almost as though reading his thoughts, she said, "You're a machine, but you felt pain and spoke and you _think_, and it's not a program. You're _alive_. I have never even imagined anything like you and I don't know if you came to Earth by accident or by design, but I couldn't let you die before I could find out who you are, _what_ you are. Please tell me I haven't made a mistake."

Optimus looked at her, trying to decide which was wrong, the Galactic Council's analysis or his own impressions of this human. The Council had been adamant about humanity's unworthiness, but every action this one had taken ran counter to their findings. In his spark Optimus couldn't quite believe she'd pulled him from the edge of death only to betray him now.

The Matrix sent a barely-perceptible thread of energy through him, far too weak to be considered a true prompting, but Optimus decided to take it as one anyway and just trusted his instincts.

He slowly spun his t-cog, finally fully unfolding from his transitional form and sitting up in his protoform. The human watched with absolute wonder and no fear at all, and that fascinated him as he towered over her. She should've been terrified–in her place, faced with an unknown, much larger, and infinitely stronger being, _he _would've been terrified, but while she was clearly awed by the sight of him in his robot form, she wasn't afraid. "My name is Optimus Prime," he said. "I am an autonomous robotic organism from the planet Cybertron, and I am the leader of the Autobots."

"Whoa," she whispered, staring at him with wide eyes. Then she seemed to get a grip on herself. "My name is Anna Elias. And I'm… just a human. I'm just a human, not a leader of anything."

"You are not _just a human_," Optimus told her, meaning it. "You are the human who has saved my life, and as such, I and all of the Autobots are in your debt. This is not something we take lightly. Thank you, Anna Elias."

She bit her lip again, but her eyes were bright with wonder and suddenly she smiled. It lit up her entire face. It was clear that she was trying to push the smile away and look serious, but Optimus found himself rather glad that she was failing. _Such an innocent little thing, so curious,_ he thought, almost as captivated by her as she clearly was by him. "Just Anna," she said, finally giving up on suppressing the smile and letting it go. "And you're welcome."

But it only lasted a moment before her expression changed again, this time to concern. "You asked about others. Others like you," she said, serious now. "Why are you here, Optimus Prime?"

"For no nefarious purpose. We have not come to harm you or your planet," he reassured her without hesitation. When she relaxed minutely, he explained, "We have been searching for a Cybertronian artifact for millions of years and we believe we have located it on Earth. We are here to reclaim it. Once we do, we will leave your world in peace." Then he smiled ruefully. "Honestly, humanity was not supposed to know that we were here at all, but… well, as you have seen, I had some trouble. I do normally land better," he added, feeling the need to say it.

She looked him up and down and he could practically read her thoughts–he was thirty solid feet of metal robot warrior, so exactly how had he planned to go unnoticed? "Humans may be impressively blind about a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure most of us would notice _you_, big guy," she said dryly.

Optimus chuckled at the nickname, and that surprised him–when was the last time he'd allowed someone to call him anything besides his name or Prime? For that matter, when was the last time he'd _laughed?_ "We have ways of hiding in plain sight," he said, wondering if the unfamiliar power source was affecting him strangely. He looked down at his chest and saw the cables leading from beneath his reattached chestplate across the large room and out the open door. He leaned over and looked out to see several large grey machines rumbling outside–he'd been aware of the sound but hadn't paid it any mind until now. They were all individually wired to the nearest machine, which was directly linked to him and looked fairly heavily modified. He touched the cables and gave her a questioning look.

"Oh, yes, that," she said, suddenly all business. "I analyzed your power core so I could try to charge you, but you're such a powerhouse that our commonly supplied household wattage wouldn't even begin to help you. Your core cycles at a vastly higher hertz–I blew out three meters just trying to analyze it. I couldn't hit your optimum power level exactly, I don't have access to that kind of power generation here, but I've got two high-output generators and a standard one. I was able to link them in a cascade and modify the digital signal processor control on that frequency converter–" she pointed out the window, "and came fairly close to generating something that I thought should do the trick–it should be a bit over 200 KVA, pulse width modulated to 400 hertz. I directly wired it into your power core. Not pretty, but it works. At least, you're upright and talking so I assume it's working–I know what it's putting _out_, but that's the apparent power, you know, and of course real power is a different thing entirely. I don't have the kind of cables I here that I really need to minimize wattage loss in transmission. I'd need a superconductive pathway to really charge you. I guess it boils down to, I think it should be working but I don't know for sure. You'll have to tell me."

Optimus blinked at her. The last time he'd heard something that incomprehensible, it had come from Perceptor, and he'd stared at the Autobot scientist with exactly the same blank, bemused expression he turned on the human now. He wasn't stupid by any measure, but part of knowing his strengths was knowing his limitations, and he could recognize when he encountered intelligence beyond his. "It's working," he finally said, realizing that she was still staring expectantly at him. Then, unable to hold the question back, he said, "Do all humans know how to do that?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "If they did, I'd be out of a job. Remember when I said I worked for NASA? My official job description is lead researcher in charge of theoretical and alternative power sources for unmanned interplanetary probes." She spread her hands in a little bow, grinning. "To put it simply, my team designs and builds robots to send into space, and I figure out how to power them. Mine are nothing as advanced as you, obviously, but if you had to crash and knock out all your electronics, you really did pick the right place to do it."

And Optimus suddenly had a flash of restored memory–a meteor slamming violently into him just before he'd entered Earth's atmosphere, throwing him off course, damaging his heat shield, but that wasn't all. A _second_ impact from an unseen, much lighter object, not enough to cause more damage but just enough to nudge his trajectory and send him tumbling in a slightly new direction. The Matrix pulsed beneath his spark and that definitely _was_ a prompting, no doubt about it.

That second impact might as well have been Primus' hand sending him right to help.

Optimus looked at her with new respect–he'd already been impressed by her bravery and generosity, but he was slowly beginning to realize that she was something even more than he'd thought. "I am in your debt," he told her again, unable to think of any other words.

Well, besides things like _I wonder what Perceptor and Ratchet would make of you,_ but that was something that couldn't happen. For one thing, Perceptor hadn't even come on this mission, and for another, he had no idea where Ratchet even _was_. For all he knew, the meteor shower that had damaged him had done the same thing to Ratchet, Ironhide, and Jazz, too.

And that brought a new surge of anxiety. He had to find them. "My Autobots–I need to contact them. I need to be sure that they are all right."

Anna bit her lip again. "I fixed the systems I thought I recognized," she told him. "But you're pretty much made of things that are unfamiliar to me. If your communications aren't working, I don't know how to repair them, but I'm willing to try if you think you can talk me through it."

Optimus groaned. "I am no medic," he admitted. Then he looked around the building, seeing equipment both familiar and completely mysterious, but he saw nothing that looked like the kind of communications equipment he recognized. Finally he sighed. "My internal repair systems will bring my communications back online, given time. I suppose I will have to wait."

"Sorry," she said, and she sounded sincere. "I have team members who know communications systems better than I ever will, but I'm getting the impression that you don't want anyone else to know you're here. Don't worry, I haven't called anyone," she added when he looked sharply at her.

"Are you going to?" he asked. He dreaded the answer but he had to ask. His luck so far had been far better than he had any right to expect–there was clearly a reason Primus had sent him to this Anna Elias–but she was human. Her loyalty would obviously be to her species and her world. Many planets offered a bounty for the capture of an alien species, and while there was no data indicating that Earth did so, Optimus wouldn't be surprised if it did, and he couldn't really blame her if she decided to collect.

After all, she didn't know him, and she'd already done more for him than he could repay.

To her credit, she didn't instantly reply with a reassuring lie. After a moment's consideration, thought, she finally shook her head. "Not unless I have to," she said, spreading her hands. "Are you going to make me wish I had?"

Optimus smiled at the bluntness of the question. "I have no plans to do so," he assured her. Then, feeling somehow that the formality was necessary, he said, "Upon my word as Prime of the Autobots, I offer you a bond of peace, Anna Elias. You will come to no harm at our hands. Do you accept?"

The words were clearly unfamiliar, but she looked relieved. "I accept," she replied, and then she added, "I thought Prime was your name. No?"

"Optimus is my name, and Prime is my title," he explained. "I am called Prime in the same way that you would call your leader President."

That made her smile again. "Do you know that in an ancient language called Latin, _Optimus Prime_ would be roughly translated as _the best is first_? What a comforting name for the first alien to visit my planet."

He raised an eyebrow, uncharacteristically flattered that she'd said something like that, but he was beginning to realize that this human was surprising in many ways. This conversation had failed to go as expected several times. "That is… an interesting translation of my name," he replied thoughtfully, but fatigue was beginning to wear on him. "Something to aspire to, I suppose."

She laughed at that but she clearly noticed his tone. Gesturing at the cables, she said, "You're safe here, Optimus Prime. If you need to, I don't know what you call it, shut down or recharge or sleep in order to repair yourself faster, you can. If I'm not here in the barn with you, I'll be close enough to hear a shout if you need me."

He nodded. "Shutting down would help," he admitted. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," she said lightly. Then she snapped her fingers as though remembering something. "Oh, and I need to go cover your tracks–no one's come looking for a meteorite yet, but they will. You're going to hear an explosion. Don't freak out."

He frowned. "Explosion?" he echoed.

"Well, explosion might be the wrong word, but yeah." Seeing his expression, she walked toward the door and lifted something from a sturdy box from beside it. "I just bought this, too," she murmured, her back to him, but she shrugged to herself and turned to show him what was in her hands.

"A meteorite," he said, staring at the blackened, pitted lump in her arms. It was tiny to him but obviously heavy to her because she held it close to her body, muscles standing out beneath her skin as she supported it. _Such a little thing,_ he thought, surprised that he'd forgotten that even for a moment, but her personality was so big that her actual size had slipped his mind.

"I collect them," she explained, carrying it over to a worktable near him and dropping it with a thud. Then she gave him a hesitant kind of look. "I've always wanted to go into space and I won't ever get to, so I work for the space program and I collect these. It's not direct, but something of me goes out to the stars, and they send something back that I can touch…" Her voice trailed off and she shrugged, looking down at the rock as if embarrassed. "And considering where you came from, that probably sounded really stupid."

He reached out and touched the meteorite. "It doesn't sound stupid at all," he said quietly.

She glanced at him, clearly wondering if he was making fun of her, but whatever she saw in his face reassured her enough that her shoulders visibly relaxed. "Well, anyway, that's why I have it. This is the biggest one I have, but I can't just bury it in the crater–too obvious. There's too much evidence of fire and I had to dig quite a bit to gather up all the, um, well, all the pieces of you. So I planned to put this in liquid nitrogen long enough to freeze it solid, then throw it at that granite outcrop that wrecked you. It's still very hot and it should shatter this with significant force to mimic a hard impact." She patted the iron. "And everyone knows I collect these. If this really had been a meteor, I would definitely be out there digging up the bits."

It was a clever plan and, Optimus was startled to realize, something he hadn't even thought of. After his catastrophic entry, the chances of human authorities coming to investigate were high. It spoke highly of Anna that she'd considered this. He looked at the meteorite again, thinking of a way to express his appreciation, and had a sudden idea. "You have many of these?" he asked, thinking of her admission that she collected them. When she nodded shyly, he smiled. "When my systems are fully functional again, I could analyze them for you and identify where they came from."

Her eyes lit with startled wonder. "You can do that? You could really tell?"

He nodded, still smiling. "It would give me very great pleasure to do that for you. I would be glad to tell you what parts of the universe you have touched."

Anna looked up at him, happiness filling her so strongly that he almost felt it radiating from her. Then she reached out and he instinctively touched her hand. The Matrix sent another flutter through him at the instant of contact. "Cybertron," she murmured, her soft hand warm against his cool metal, and the image of her smile followed him down into recharge.

.

… **that paragraph of Anna talking about recharging Optimus is the result of an ungodly amount of highly confusing research. If there are any electrical engineers reading this, be kind to me. I tried. (or, _dammit, Jim, I'm a fanfic writer, not an electrical engineer!_)**


	3. Can We Keep It?

**More thanks to my reviewers! Muirgen79 (yeah, she definitely should've done that, but curiosity is so very her greatest weakness), SunnySides, Teddy Bear 007, liv cahill, Answerthecall, and Kaanae! Thanks, guys!**

**And twdgirls, I do suspect that there will be something in here that appeals to you. Just sayin's all. ;)**

**.**

Optimus rested lightly, partially so he could keep an ear out for Anna–not that he suspected her of treachery, but because he was beginning to suspect that Primus had not sent him here merely to receive help. Something about this human was… compelling. He wasn't so injured that he couldn't notice it. True to her warning, he heard a shattering bang an hour or so after she'd left the barn, and he knew that she'd followed through on her plan for the meteorite. It was humbling that she would sacrifice something so clearly precious to her for him.

He also was listening for any signs of other Cybertronians. Now that his memory banks were accessible once more, he recalled Bumblebee's report that he had already encountered at least one Decepticon on this planet. Even with his self-repair systems now ticking away at full functionality, Optimus was still critically low on power and would rather not meet them if he didn't have to. More than that, though, he was hoping to hear the sound of a familiar ambulance engine and the growl of his friend and medic scolding him for such a horrifically clumsy landing. He would take the abuse gladly just to know that his Autobots were alive and well.

Anna returned to barn shortly afterward and he frowned at a coppery scent in the air. He hadn't encountered many organics in his life, but he'd known enough to recognize that scent for what it was. "Why are you bleeding?" he demanded, coming partially out of recharge and opening his eyes.

She glanced at him, surprised. "I'm not?" she said, but her tone made it a question as she looked automatically at her hands and arms.

"You are," he countered, sitting up now and looking her over. After a moment, he located the wound–a small nick on one ear that trickled a thin line of red. "There," he said, pointing.

She reached up and found the little cut. Pulling her hand away to see the smear of blood on her fingers, she said, "Oh–I didn't even notice that. Thought I was far away enough to avoid any shrapnel, but man, you should've seen that meteorite break! It's fine, I'll clean it up later."

He frowned more deeply at the news that she'd been injured helping him. "No, you should clean it now."

"It's just my ear. If it falls off, I'll glue it back on," she joked lightly, but he didn't laugh.

"Do it _now_," he commanded. He didn't like the thought of a wound on her, even one that little.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Wow, that sounded like an order," she said, making no move to obey it.

"It was," Optimus replied in the stern, no-nonsense tone that made his Autobots jump.

She pursed her lips in a flatly unamused look that wordlessly expressed her opinion of his orders and simultaneously communicated that the likelihood of her jumping to obey him hovered somewhere around nonexistent. Then she walked over to the long work bench and started searching through the tools there, completely dismissing his order with an ease that made his own eyebrows rise. She glanced up and saw him staring at her, and sighed. "Optimus, relax. It's nothing."

"I dislike leaving wounds unattended when there is time to properly care for them," he replied stiffly, even though normally one that tiny wouldn't bother him so much. Likely his own brush with death had left him a bit hypersensitive. Combine that with not being used to anyone second-guessing him and it was no wonder that her refusal threw him. "And organic species are prone to infection," he added, reaching for an explanation and wondering which one of them it was for.

Anna was looking at him like he was a little crazy now, and he was starting to feel like maybe he was, but then she gave him an exasperated look and shook her head. "All right, all right. I'll go in the house and clean it, but only on the condition that _you_ lay back down and sleep. I'll check you over when I get back. Deal?"

Optimus wasn't sure when this had changed from an order to a negotiation, but he nodded anyway. She smiled and pointedly waited until he stretched out again and closed his eyes before he heard her footsteps retreating once more. _Stubborn little thing,_ he thought, already powering down again, but instead of annoyance, the thought was almost… amused. He could squash her with one finger, but she still wasn't going to take any scrap from him.

He wondered if she realized just how much trust in him that attitude showed.

He relaxed and shut down all the systems he dared–her electrical contraption was indeed charging him, but it was painfully slow, especially with the energy his repair nanites were using to finish what she'd started. He still wasn't even up to 30% power yet. The fewer systems he had drawing off the charge, the faster he would recover.

That was why he didn't immediately hear her footsteps returning only a few minutes later. In fact, he had only just noticed several new pings on his proximity detector when Anna called to him in a tone that trembled on the very edge of panic, "Optimus?"

He came online in a rush–and this time he came _fully_ online, weapons systems powered up and armed in reaction to her fear before he'd even gotten his optics completely open. Anna was backing into the barn, shaking hands held above her head and every line of her body screaming _terror_ as she backed away from a gun barrel too large to be human-made.

Deep inside his chest, the Matrix _snarled._

Optimus was in motion before he even knew what he meant to do. Grabbing for his barrage cannon with one hand, he lunged forward to the fullest extent of the charging cables, brought up short only by the hard pull on his spark chamber, and seized Anna with his other hand. She yelped as he snatched her away from the doorway and tucked her securely against his chest. The instant she was out of harm's way, he leveled his barrage cannon at the enemy just outside the large barn entrance.

Right at a very startled Jazz.

"Prime!" his second lieutenant cried, immediately lowering his gun and rushing forward. "Ratchet, he's alive!"

Optimus had a harder time lowering his own weapon. Anna was a trembling, terrified weight in his hand and the sight of his savior being menaced at gunpoint was burned into his optics with the force of pure fury. Gritting his teeth, he deactivated his gun and tried to shove the reflexive rage away. "Jazz," he said as Ratchet sped up and transformed, but instead of the warm greeting Jazz clearly expected, the name came out on as a warning growl.

Ratchet frowned at his uncharacteristic tone. The medic pushed Jazz out of the way and hurried over to Optimus, scanner held at the ready as he knelt down beside him. "What in the pit is all of this? Who did this to you?" he demanded, staring in horror at the Energon-splattered floor, broken parts, and especially the cables snaking into his chest and wrapping around his spark.

"Thank Primus you're alive," Ironhide said, also pressing into the barn, and Bee stuck his head through the doorway–there was no way the scout could fit inside with all of the rest of them–and hooted a wordless, relieved beep of his own.

"Not Primus. Thank _her,_" Optimus said, finally making himself open his hand to reveal Anna.

Fearless as she'd been in all her interactions with Optimus, she was clearly scared to death now. She sat frozen on his palm, breathing in short, panicked gasps and staring up at the new arrivals with wide, frightened eyes. "It's all right. They will not harm you," Optimus reassured her gently in English, but a sharp glare at each of them in turn made it clear that this was an order.

Her body didn't relax one iota. "You sure?" she whispered, still staring at the Autobots like she expected them to shoot her on the spot.

Ratchet was looking at her as though he couldn't decide whether he felt surprise or disbelief or anger. Finally he settled on a mix of all three with a healthy side order of disgust and said, still in Cybertronian, "Prime, I'm asking again, what is that _thing_ and what in the name of Vector Sigma did it do to your _spark?_"

"_She_ is a human, and what she did to my spark was keep it from going out," Optimus snapped back. When the medic blinked at him, utterly taken aback, Optimus carefully lowered Anna to the ground again, putting her gently on her feet right beside him. She stood but pressed back against his armored leg as though seeking reassurance and he kept his hand beside her, close enough for her to know that he could shield her again if necessary.

Ratchet's scanner beeped, startling him out of his shock, and he read the readout with visibly growing astonishment. After a moment, he glanced at Anna again, but only for a moment before his focus returned to Prime. "From the amount of Energon soaking the dirt out there, I thought you had surely bled out," he said, shaking his head in shock. "How are you almost completely repaired?"

Optimus nodded toward her again. This time he answered the medic in English. "This human found me when I crashed, Ratchet. I would have died within minutes of landing without her intervention. She deserves our respect and gratitude."

Ironhide finally deactivated his cannons. He was already crouching to fit inside the barn, but now he bent even lower so that he was much closer to her level. "You have mine," he said solemnly, pressing a fist to his chest and bowing his head. "You've saved our Prime, little one. There's no way we can express his importance in this universe to you. _Thank you_ will never be enough."

She trembled a little harder against Prime's leg and didn't say a word. Optimus looked down at her, worried now that he'd been too rough when he'd grabbed her. "Are you all right?" he murmured. Primus, but she was such a _delicate_ little thing, and how did he keep forgetting that?

Her eyes were enormous. "I just stared down the barrel of a gun bigger than I am, not to mention the snatch-and-grab action there. You're going to have to give me a minute before I'm all right. Please don't do that again, King Kong. My heart can't take it."

Prime's processor, now fully functional, located the reference instantly, and he actually grinned at the comparison to a giant ape hauling a woman around in its hand while archaic planes shot at them. Humor was a good sign, and even better, there had been no markers of pain in her voice print. Still, he made a mental note to be much more gentle with her in the future. "At least I didn't haul you to the top of a skyscraper and beat my chest. Maybe next time?" he offered, hoping to get a smile.

Anna snorted. "Imagine the most emphatic _no_ there's ever been, then double that," she said, but her body stopped shaking with fear, and Optimus would take that as a win. He looked up to find all of his Autobots staring at him like he'd sprouted a second head and abruptly realized just how out-of-character that comment was for him–Orion Pax used to know how to joke and tease, but aeons of war had left Optimus Prime with no patience for that. He was about to try to change the subject when she did it for him. "Wait a minute. How do you even know what King Kong is?"

"Internet," Optimus said, tapping the side of his head, and she actually laughed and shook her head.

"Why am I even surprised right now," she muttered to herself.

Then he went serious and looked back to his Autobots, all of whom were still watching this interaction with varying degrees of disbelief. Pretending not to notice, he made the introductions. "Autobots, this is Anna Elias, the human who saved me. Anna, may I present Chief Medical Officer Ratchet, my weapons specialist Ironhide, my second lieutenant Jazz, and Bumblebee, our advance scout."

She looked at each of them in turn, and although she went even more tense at the introductions, she didn't move away from Optimus. "That all sounds very… military," she said weakly. "And trigger-happy doesn't even begin to cover what just happened here. You said you weren't going to make me regret helping you, Optimus."

Optimus stroked a fingertip down her arm–gently, _gently_–in a gesture he hoped would be comforting. "And I meant it," he said honestly. "You have my word that our sole interest on your planet is retrieving our artifact. Once we have it, we will leave you in peace." The Matrix pulsed, but whether in approval or protest of this, he couldn't tell.

She looked up at him, still clearly overwhelmed, and finally rubbed both hands over her face. "Oh, this is so far above my paygrade," she whispered. Then she raised her voice without removing her hands. "I'm trusting you, Optimus Prime. Whether that makes me brave or stupid, well, I guess I won't know that until the end, will I."

Ratchet was alternating staring at her, then Optimus, then back at her again, as though he couldn't decide who was more shocking. Finally he settled on Anna. "You have hardwired equipment to my Prime's spark chamber, human. I need to know what it is and why. Now."

"Spark chamber?" she echoed blankly, finally uncovering her face.

"What you have been calling my power core," Optimus explained, then answered the medic himself. "My energy levels plummeted near to offline after the crash, Ratchet. She is recharging me. This method is clearly not optimal, but it has been effective enough to allow my systems to begin to repair themselves."

"Oh–power, spark, I should've figured that out," Anna said, shaking her head before meeting Ratchet's surprised gaze. "I realize this is probably not how it's typically done, but I didn't know how else to do it."

Ratchet just grunted in reply. He bent closer and tapped on Prime's half-closed chestplate, and Optimus obediently retracted it the rest of the way for him–the sensation of his t-cog's smooth response brought a wave of relief after his struggle to access just one arm not long ago. Ratchet examined the wiring, then without so much as looking up, said, "Human, you have made an unholy mess in here. Remove it."

Anna looked both offended and devastated at the implication that she'd done something harmful to him. "Ratchet," Optimus said on a hint of a growl.

The medic glanced at him but although he rolled his eyes and sighed, he did change his tone. "It's not hurting him, I just need it out of the way," he admitted grudgingly.

"Ignore him, kid," Ironhide said, smiling at her. "He's just slagged off that you repaired Prime almost as well as he could have. The rest of us are damn impressed."

"Hardly," Ratchet grumbled, but Anna looked a little less upset, and the medic actually explained–apparently it was time for everyone to behave uncharacteristically. "I suppose you aren't completely incompetent, but this thing you've made is the wrong kind of power, incorrectly applied. I can repair and charge him properly now, but I need all of this…" He visibly searched for a word that wasn't _mess_ or something equally abrasive and didn't find one. "… _this_ gone first. Now remove it."

"I'll have to turn off the generators first," she said, but she glanced up at Optimus and waited for his nod first–she clearly trusted the new arrivals no more than they trusted her. Once he gave her a reassuring smile and nod, Anna very cautiously made her way past the Autobots and out the door. A quick gesture from Ratchet sent Bee after her, and Optimus couldn't blame him for that. If he'd found an unknown alien standing over one of his Autobots with some strange device wired to their spark chamber, he wouldn't allow them to modify a damn thing without close supervision, either.

Jazz raised an eyebrow at Optimus when she was gone. "Looks like you made yourself a friend there, Prime," he said, grinning. "It's so little and cute. Can we keep it?"

Optimus was rapidly losing patience with the disrespect they were showing her. "Stop calling her _it_, Jazz."

Ironhide gave him a pointed look. "I have a feeling we missed something more important than you crashing and burning, Prime. Want to fill us in?"

Optimus glanced out the window to watch Bee "talking" to Anna–his vocal processor was still completely nonfunctional, but it was amazing how much the young scout could express with a mixture of radio chatter and charades. Anna seemed not to have any trouble understanding him, at any rate. The yellow bot already had her laughing as she moved to the first of the generators and Optimus was both glad to see her relaxing and, confusingly, unhappy that Bee was charming her. Something about that human had him feeling more than a little… he truly wanted to finish that sentence with _protective,_ but _possessive_ might actually have been more accurate.

The Matrix kicked at him again. _Knock it off, I get it,_ he thought irritably, although he was beginning to think that maybe he didn't. _I don't suppose you'd like to give me any information beyond poking at me?_

And of course the Matrix did nothing at all in response to that.

"Prime?" Ironhide repeated, frowning now, and Optimus focused.

"The Matrix reacts very strongly to her. I do not know why or how, but I suspect she is important to us in some way beyond merely saving my life," he said, deciding there was no point in hiding it. Besides, maybe one of them could help him figure out what was going on here.

"Saving your life isn't _merely_ anything," Jazz said.

Ratchet had plugged the scanner into his diagnostic port now and was studying his error history with both eyebrows raised. "Damn, Prime, you were… you weren't kidding when you said you nearly died. How did you manage to crash yourself that bad?"

Optimus sighed, feeling the power flow through the cables abruptly decrease as Anna deactivated the first generator. "Meteor strike during entry," he said, remembering the impact, the shattering pain in his heat shields and the dread of knowing that it was too late to abort atmospheric entry now. "And an inconvenient granite outcrop."

Ratchet whistled low, shaking his head as he kept reading. "The human actually did a… decent job on you," he said, looking like he hardly believed what he was seeing. "Maybe the Matrix is just expressing its gratitude."

"Perhaps," Optimus said, focusing on it again, but now that he _wanted_ it to do something, naturally the Matrix remained calm and quiet in his chest. It was always like that–Primus guided his Primes with nudges and hints, not orders, and while Optimus usually appreciated the freedom that afforded him, sometimes it was just frustrating. "And she has a name and it isn't _the human_, Ratchet."

The medic ignored that as Jazz leaned forward, very interested. "What does it do? The Matrix, I mean?"

Optimus looked outside again–Anna had moved to the thing she had called a digital signal processor and was doing something to it now, and after a moment, he felt the barely perceptible irregularity in the energy inflow smooth out. That irregularity had been well within his tolerance, but her care in ensuring his comfort was touching. "It… just gets my attention," he said, watching her walk to the next generator. Then he glanced at Jazz. "And it was _very_ angry when you threatened her."

"It was, or you were?" Ironhide asked as Ratchet shifted a component to check Prime's t-cog.

"Both," Optimus answered honestly, but Ratchet didn't even listen to that reply as he exclaimed at what he'd just found.

"What the _pit_ did she do to your cog?" he demanded, staring at it.

"Fixed it," he said simply.

"That is impossible," Ratchet said flatly, jabbing a finger at it. "_That_ is not how that's done!"

Optimus shrugged. "I don't know how it's done, but I know that I can transform," he said, and when Ratchet sent him a disbelieving look, he spread his hands and answered the obvious question in his eyes. "She knows robots, Ratchet–she designs power systems for the human space exploration program's robotic probes. Maybe she's not doing things the 'right' way, but it all _works_. No matter what you think of her methods, you can't argue that they've been effective."

Ironhide was shaking his head slowly, incredulous. "Damn, Prime, you have to be the luckiest son of a glitch ever forged," he said, wide-eyed. "You have a catastrophic crash off-course on an unaffiliated world, and you just _happen_ to land right beside someone who specializes in exactly what's needed to fix you."

"I don't think luck had much to do with it," Optimus replied, thinking of that second strike again.

Then Jazz grinned. "Look at Ratchet!" he cackled, and Optimus couldn't help smiling–the medic looked positively offended that an untrained alien had done such a good job intuitively repairing unfamiliar systems. Ratchet sent the little silver Autobot a scowl that had no discernable impact at all on his glee. "We should definitely keep her."

"No we should _not_ keep her!" Ratchet protested as outside, Anna cut off the second generator and went back to the signal processor again. Optimus could barely feel the jagged flux in the power flow, but again, she ensured that it didn't last. The power reduction, however, was very noticeable, and he concentrated on stiffening his spinal struts so that his Autobots wouldn't see just how weak he was. Apparently he was successful because Ratchet was still speaking. "Optimus, just by letting her take a _look _at you, you've stepped dangerously close to a breach of the Tyrest Accord. We can't let her take what she's learned back to the human space program or the Council will come down hard on us _and_ the humans."

Optimus focused fully on the medic now. "I have given her my word as Prime that she will come to no harm at our hands," he said in a deliberately mild tone.

"And I'm not suggesting we kill her and hide the body, Optimus," Ratchet answered impatiently. "We just need to limit her exposure, for her sake as well as ours. This was an emergency and exceptions can be made for that, but keeping her around? That's just not a good idea."

"Wait, when did we decide we're keeping her?" Ironhide said, alarmed now. "We don't know how to care for a human–we've got no place to put her!"

Optimus held up a hand. "Anna is not a pet to be kept," he said, cutting that off right there. But just in case, he put the question to the Matrix–_are the Autobots supposed to keep her?–_got no response again, and he silently sighed. Finally he gave up on getting any more information from the thing and pushed it from his mind. "But Ratchet has a point. We are here for a specific mission, not to make friends with the locals. Whatever the Matrix is trying to tell me about her will become clear in time. For now, we need to focus on what we came here for. Have you found any more clues about–"

The final generator went silent and Prime's voice died in a surge of weariness–apparently he'd been depending on that external power, incorrectly applied as it was, far more than he'd realized. Ratchet grabbed his shoulders when he slumped. "Prime?"

"Just… just tired," Optimus said, bracing both hands on the floor and letting his head drop between them, focusing all his energy on overriding the need to shut down and charge. "That really was helping," he added, because he didn't want Ratchet to call it an_ unholy mess _to Anna again.

"Yeah, I can tell," Ratchet said. He eased Optimus back so he could lie down flat as Anna and Bee returned. "Your Energon levels are dangerously low. All of us will donate what we can and I'll give you a transfusion."

Anna looked worried to see him flat on his back again and Optimus tried to give her a reassuring smile. From her reaction, it didn't work. "Wait. Is this what you're talking about?" she asked, and hurried over to open a cabinet. "Is this what he needs?"

"Where in the _pit_ did you get that?" Ironhide demanded as three large glass jars of glowing pink Energon were revealed inside.

Anna pointed at Optimus. "I collected as much as I could while I was trying to repair him," she said, looking nervous at the intense scrutiny they were all giving her now. "But I didn't know how to put it back, or even if I should, so I just put it away. Is this any use to you?"

Ratchet finally moved. He picked up one of the large jars very carefully. "Possibly. I'll analyze it to make sure it hasn't been contaminated. It's not enough to replace what he lost, but if we can use it, it'll definitely help. Thank you," he said, and Optimus was gratified to finally hear the medic speaking to her normally, not as if she was a cross between a pest and a threat.

The medic's gratitude made her relax at last. "Can I keep a sample of it?"

Optimus reacted fast and got his reply out before anyone else could respond. "Why?"

She gestured at the glowing jar in Ratchet's hands. "I told you, I work with energy," she explained. "And that's energy–very concentrated, and in a form I'm not familiar with, but I think if I can just analyze it, maybe I can make you some to replace what you lost. I'd like to try."

And the Matrix didn't just react to that. It _throbbed_ with a surge of light so strong that it bled through his chest components and sent an electric flash across the interior of the barn. All of the Autobots turned to stare. "Oh," Optimus breathed, lapsing into Cybertronian in his astonishment, "so _that's_ it."

If she could make Energon, truly make Energon, it would… it would change _everything._

But unlike the frozen Autobots, Anna had leapt into motion the instant that light flashed. She rushed over and scrambled up onto Prime's chest like she'd been doing it all her life, then started quickly untangling the cables from his spark. Optimus realized she thought the Matrix's flash had been some kind of electrical short. In her hurry to detach him, she accidentally brushed her fingertips against his spark chamber.

His spark reacted to the unintentional caress by touching back.

Startled, Optimus pulled his spark down as deep as he could as she hissed sharply and jerked her hand away. He'd never felt it reach out like that before. Ratchet shot him a stunned glance that Optimus had no clue how to respond to–between the Matrix's oddly insistent behavior and his spark doing that, he had absolutely no idea what was going on here. He shook his head minutely, trying to wordlessly communicate to the medic that he hadn't done that on purpose, and Ratchet's brows drew together in a concerned frown.

But Anna herself didn't seem aware that anything had occurred beyond just a minor electric shock, and she shook her hand for the briefest of moments before going back to work on the cables again. "So, can I have a sample?" she asked, and Optimus had to think for a moment to remember what they'd been speaking about–his spark's instinctive reaction to her touch had thrown him badly. "Can I try to create some?"

"Yes," he said, and not even Ratchet protested. They all knew what it would mean for their entire race if she succeeded. "Yes, Anna, we would appreciate that."

.

… **and thus does Optimus Prime learn right off the bat that ordering Anna to do ANYTHING is never gonna go his way. Hee hee. Also, "_I suspect she is important_" has to win him the Understatement Of The Year award. Oh, Prime, just you wait... **

**Thanks for the reviews, people, please keep 'em coming! MWAH!**


	4. Cheerful, Happy, Chatty Ratchet

**Time to thank my lovely reviewers! Teddy Bear 007 (oh, but he's rapidly going to find out... hee hee), Muirgen79 (the title of that chapter was _this _close to being The Matrix Has OPINIONS because it so does), Sunny Sides (we love the fluffs, oh yes we do), Answerthecall, Himelove22 (welcome, first time reviewer!), liv cahill (he'd have such an easier time if he wasn't so immune to hints, wouldn't he?), Teletraan-1 (LOVE your new name, and yes, a friendly, fluffy Ratchet would be a terrifying thing indeed, the Autobots would run so hard, and this chapter title is at least partially your fault), MaddySan5926, HeartsGuardianSol, YoungScribe (thank you!), SusantheRedhead (always so thrilled to hear from a new reviewer, so from one redhead to another, thank you!), lubieogorky (you are saved!), guest (hmm, wonder just who's gonna blink first? hee hee), and Amelia St. Claire! Thanks again to everyone who takes a few seconds to review, you are all rock stars!**

**Have I disclaimered on this yet? I own nothing but Anna and the plot. The Transformers belong to Hasbro, and I'm making no money off this. And now, on with the show!**

**.**

Bumblebee departed less than an hour later to continue his search for clues to the location of the Allspark. Anna watched with obvious awe as he transformed into an old Camaro, and the scout humored her by transforming back and forth a few times while she gaped in wonder. When she returned to the barn after he left, she couldn't stop talking about it. "So you can be anything?" she asked Optimus, watching from atop her work table as Ratchet worked on him.

"Not quite _anything_," Optimus replied, choosing to ignore Ratchet's steadily darkening look whenever he answered her questions–and she was full of them. Ratchet was pretending he didn't hear anything she said, but Optimus didn't want to be rude. Just because his own medic was here to care for him now didn't mean that it was necessary to completely shut her out. Besides, none of this was actually giving her technology and therefore didn't technically fall under Tyrest guidelines, so he saw no harm in humoring her. "It must be of an appropriate size, and it has to fit our function. Most of us settle on one alt-mode and stick with that."

She looked at Ratchet. "You should be an ambulance, then," she said, and when he pointedly ignored her again, she glanced at Optimus with a mischievous glint in her eye. She seemed as determined to get a reaction from the medic as he was not to give her one. "Or maybe an ice cream truck–ooh, no, a clown car. Something cheerful and light that brightens the hearts of all who hear its joyous tunes. You're just so happy and chatty, Ratchet."

Ratchet frowned when Optimus searched his new internet connection for an images of _ice cream truck_ and _clown car,_ then promptly choked on a laugh. "I'm _trying_ to concentrate here, human," he grumbled, answering her for the first time since she'd returned to the barn.

"Then you should ignore me and concentrate," she said innocently, and Optimus failed to stifle his laughter this time because the medic was trying his damndest to do just that, and failing miserably.

It wasn't entirely the medic's fault, Optimus thought. Anna was just impossible to ignore. Everything about her demanded attention.

"Can you please not encourage this?" Ratchet asked him in Cybertronian.

"How am I encouraging it?" Optimus protested, and the medic gave him a stern look.

"You're _laughing,_" he said, making it sound like a dirty word. "And every time you do, she gets this look and keeps going."

"That's hardly my fault," Optimus said, but he was grinning now.

Ratchet frowned at him and started to speak again, but something pinged off his shoulder and he turned to give Anna an incredulous look instead.

"No fair talking about me when I can't understand you. How am I supposed to decide how offended to be?" she said, lifting another tiny screw from a bin on the workbench and tossing it in her palm. Then she put it down and spread her hands. "If you want me to stop bothering you, you could put me to work. I'm _good_ at this kind of thing, Ratchet. Let me help."

"However good you are with your primitive Earth robots, you are in no way qualified to so much as _touch_ one of us, and I don't want or need your help," Ratchet snapped, but when her face fell and Prime gave him a disappointed look, he sighed. "If you're truly determined to do something for us, why don't you go help Ironhide or Jazz find alt-modes to scan instead of nagging me? That would actually be useful."

"Jazz already scanned some little car that drove by and Ironhide scanned my truck," she said, and Prime watched her smile warmly at the big warrior. She was still a bit hesitant of Jazz–getting held at gunpoint would do that, apologies about the misunderstanding or not–and seemed determined to annoy Ratchet, but she clearly had no problem with Ironhide. Then again, of all of his Autobots, he'd been the most respectful to her. "I'm going to have to be careful which one I take to work. That is really the coolest thing I've ever seen."

Ironhide grinned back at her. "You have good taste in trucks. Fits me just right."

"How about you find something for me, then?" Optimus suggested, drawing her attention from Ironhide back to himself. He waved an arm at his body. "I'm not sure what would suit me. I haven't seen many human vehicles that are of a proper size."

She looked him over. "How big are we talking, here?" she asked.

"Somewhat bigger than Ironhide's truck," Optimus replied. "And ground-based. I am no flyer."

Her eyes took on that teasing gleam again. "Yes, I noticed," she said dryly, and he chuckled–actually _chuckled_ at the unsubtle dig about his less than fantastic landing.

"Vicious little thing," he scolded, shaking a finger at her, but he couldn't keep from laughing again at the delighted grin she gave him. _Teasing me_, he thought, _she is actually teasing me._ He'd almost forgotten what that felt like.

Ratchet poked him impatiently. "Stop. _Laughing,_" he growled.

"Quit nagging him, you old killjoy," Jazz said from across the barn where he was cleaning his blasters. "When's the last time you heard Prime laugh, huh?"

"That's not the point. These repairs require precision. I can't be precise when his entire chest is shaking like this." Ratchet glared sternly at Anna. "If you can't be quiet, I'm going to make you leave."

She glared right back at him. "Uh-huh, good luck kicking me out of _my own barn_," she shot back with a flash of that stubbornness she'd showed when Optimus had tried to order her to take care of her wounded ear–which she still hadn't done, incidentally, although Optimus decided he could give her some leeway considering how his Autobots had rather dramatically introduced themselves. Then she looked at the others in turn. "Is he always this cranky?"

"Yes," Jazz and Ironhide answered together. Anna snickered and glanced at Optimus.

"He is currently doing surgery on me. I'm not answering that question," Optimus told her solemnly, and when she all but cackled, he grinned. Ratchet sighed and stopped what he was doing to Prime's chest in order to pick up the scanner and wave it over his head instead. "What are you doing?"

"Checking you for damage to your processor module," Ratchet replied, frowning.

Ironhide made a rude noise. "Oh, leave him alone, Ratchet. You've been telling him to lighten up for years. Now that he's doing it, you think it means he's got brain damage?"

Optimus pushed the scanner away. "The damage was to my memory banks, not my processor," he told the medic, but he took the hint and stopped smiling. He had to admit that Ratchet had a point, and it was one that he had thought himself earlier–he wasn't acting like his usual solemn self. Entertaining as it was to verbally spar with Anna and watch the medic struggle to deal with someone who was very nearly as stubborn as he was, Ratchet was correct that his repairs took priority. "Continue your work, Ratchet. I will cooperate."

"And what about–where'd she go?" Ratchet broke off, looking at where Anna had been and finding the tabletop empty. Ironhide pointed up and Optimus and Ratchet both looked up to see Anna just reaching the top of a ladder and stepping carefully onto one of the heavy rafters. "What are you doing up there, human?" the medic asked, sounding equal parts exasperated and concerned.

"I can't see well from where I was," she said, moving across the narrow beam with a confidence that spoke of past experience.

"A fall from that height would be disabling. Come down immediately," Ratchet said impatiently.

Anna gave him a serene smile and dropped down to straddle the rafter just over Optimus. "You guys sure do like to give orders. Allow me to teach you a human phrase, Ratchet. You're not the boss of me." She kicked her feet, perfectly comfortable on her chosen perch. "Besides, I would've thought you'd be relieved if I fell and shut up permanently."

Ratchet scowled. "Well, obviously, but I don't want to have to clean up the mess. Organics are so _squishy_," he grumbled, then glared at Optimus when he laughed again. "I thought you were going to behave."

Optimus waved a hand, hearing the worry beneath his bluster. No matter what Ratchet said, he didn't want to see her hurt. "She grows on you, doesn't she?" he replied, and the medic's scowl deepened.

"Like a rust stain," he growled. He looked at Optimus–who was trying very hard not to snicker as Anna laughed at the insult–and switched back to Cybertronian. "I was blocking her view on purpose, Prime. Do you really want her seeing still more of how we work?"

"She's not going to use the knowledge against us," Optimus replied, unsure how he knew this but absolutely sure that it was the truth.

"Not all of us have a hotline to Primus. Forgive me for being cautious about revealing our weaknesses," Ratchet said, and when he went back to work, he leaned over Prime's chest in an effort to continue blocking her view. "You're not usually this trusting. In fact, it's been millions of years since I've seen you act _anything_ like this. If I hadn't scanned you myself, I'd say you were drunk. Maybe you should let someone else's read of this situation guide you, just this once."

"I'm telling you, we should keep her," Jazz called from outside in the same language.

Optimus ignored Jazz's repeated request to make Anna into their pet and thought about Ratchet's words instead. Again, Ratchet had a point. Still, the Matrix felt decidedly content and relaxed within him, and he had been reading its energy for clues to hidden dangers for aeons. If there was cause for alarm, he was confident that this strange mood wouldn't prevent him from picking up on it. "We have nothing to fear from this human, Ratchet," he finally said, still in Cybertronian. "I would stake my life upon it."

"You are," Ratchet replied pointedly.

Optimus looked up at Anna, examining her as she watched the medic's every move–no matter how hard Ratchet tried, he couldn't fully block her from seeing everything he was doing, and those bright blue eyes were sharp. Every so often, he'd see a flash of understanding on her face, or of surprise. Thinking that perhaps he should listen to Ratchet and try to distract her at least a little, he prompted, "So, have you thought of a vehicle for me yet, Anna?"

She glanced up, looking startled as though she'd been so engrossed in watching Ratchet that she'd forgotten anything else. He'd seen that kind of concentration from his science team many times. In fact, he'd felt it himself many, many years ago, that almost meditative state where information seemed to dance at his whim, easy to manipulate and corral. "Vehicle?" she echoed, and he knew he'd pegged her state of mind correctly. Then her gaze cleared. "Oh! Yes. Well, the only thing bigger than my truck that's street-legal is a semi."

"Semi-what?" Jazz asked.

Anna shook her head. "No, it's not a semi-anything, that's what it's called. I'm not sure why they're called that, actually. I'll have to look it up," she mused aloud, at least partially still in that state of heightened curiosity.

Optimus automatically accessed his internet connection and found the answer immediately. "It is because the vehicle consists of two parts, the tractor and the trailer, and the trailer is exactly half the length of a standard railroad car," he told her, already running other background searches to identify _tractor_ and _trailer_ and _railroad car_. "Also because the trailer is semi-wheelless, since it attaches to the tractor."

She gave him a grateful smile. "Thank you, google," she said, and he smiled back–another nickname, and he still felt no urge to tell her to address him properly. "It must be convenient to have an internet connection in your head. Now find a picture and tell me if you think that would work."

Optimus did so. "Hmm," he said thoughtfully, scrolling through the different images. Truthfully, he liked the look of the large trucks–intimidating, strong, formidable vehicles. They looked like they had some muscle. "Yes, I do think that would work nicely, but unfortunately I cannot obtain a usable scan from images alone."

She shrugged. "Well, once Ratchet's done undoing my _unholy mess_, just go down to the end of my driveway and watch the interstate for a few minutes. They go by all the time."

Ratchet rolled his eyes. "Not going to let that go, I see," he muttered as he worked.

"Would you?" she asked, and then added under her breath, "I did the best I could," but Optimus heard her, and it was clear that Ratchet did too. The medic didn't answer her, but Optimus saw his expression–part stubbornness, part regret–and he'd known Ratchet long enough to understand what he was thinking. He had clearly meant it, but had he known it would bother her so much, he might not have actually _said_ it.

"The best you could was very good, and I for one am very glad that you did it," Optimus told her.

"So how's it going with that Energon?" Ironhide asked the medic. Ratchet had scanned the jars of Energon and found that it was contaminated with coolant, oil, and small particulates, so they'd poured it all into his purification tanks and the medic had been running it through his internal filters for the last hour. "Are you going to be able to clean it up enough to make it useable?"

"Yes," Ratchet replied, looking glad of the subject change. "It will take just a little more time. I want to run it through at least twice more to ensure I've separated out all the contaminants. Then we'll see how much we end up with and how much the rest of us need to donate."

"Sorry I couldn't save more," Anna said. "I didn't think of it at first–I was just trying to stop it leaking out. By the time I thought of catching it in the jars, he'd already lost a lot."

"Collecting any at all was a great help," Ratchet replied, and Optimus heard what might have been a hint of very grudging respect in his gruff tone. Anna looked surprised to hear it. "And the rest of us are fully fueled. We've got enough to spare to make up the difference."

"Are you sure you have enough for me to take a sample?" she asked Optimus, looking concerned now. "When I asked, I didn't realize that this is basically your blood."

"If you think there's any chance you can synthesize more, we want you to try," Optimus told her firmly. "There's enough. Take what you need."

She bit her lip, holding his gaze for a long moment as if trying to gauge his honesty, before nodding. "I won't need much–I just need enough to analyze. Once I can determine the base electrolyte, I can hopefully figure out how to energize it in a stable way. It's just so completely different from any kind of energy storage I've ever used. In something like a battery, there are stabilizing components–your Energon is clearly the energized electrolyte, but without a cathode or diode to direct the electron flow and create the circuit, I don't know how you keep it from just discharging. I assume those are inside you somehow and you adjust the flow between them depending on your power consumption, but if you always have Energon inside you, how do you reset the electrochemical changes in the cathode and diode?"

Jazz had stopped working with his blaster and stared up at her, looking the way Optimus had felt when she'd explained the recharging set-up she'd created for him. Then he looked at Ratchet. "Is that how it works?"

Ratchet didn't pause in his work. "Not exactly. It's less of an electron transmission medium than a form of concentrated potential energy."

"Made _tangible_?" Anna asked, startled. "I've never heard of anyone making something like that. How do you _do_ that?"

"We don't make it–we find it. If we knew how to create it ourselves, we wouldn't spend so much time looking for naturally occurring Energon deposits to refine," Ratchet replied.

She was sitting straight up now, clearly fascinated. "Is this liquid not its natural state?"

He shook his head. "It is originally found in a crystalline form," he told her, and Optimus didn't dare to show his own surprise that the medic was freely sharing this information with her. Then again, Ratchet had seen more Autobots die of starvation during this endless war than any of them wanted to remember. If there was any chance this human could do something to ensure that he never had to see that again, was it really so surprising that Ratchet would put aside his personal dislike to help in any way he could? "And it's quite unstable and dangerous in that form. We refine it into the liquid you've seen."

Anna drummed her fingers on the wooden beam before her, looking confused now. "But it's inside you. If it has to be refined, and you're the ones who refine it, how did your race even get started? Did you used to run on something else?"

Ratchet snorted. "And now we've left science and entered religion. Don't ask me where we came from, human. I can only tell you about things I've personally seen."

She waved a hand. "I've got no interest in religion," she said, her tone every bit as dismissive as the medic's had been, and Optimus saw that Ratchet was reluctantly impressed by that. The medic had little use for superstition or religion. "I suppose I'm coming at this from an organic viewpoint–imagining humans having to invent our own blood. It's a little brain-breaking." Then she shrugged. "Not important right now, though. Tell me more about this crystal. What kind of environment do you typically find it in? Volcanic, radioactive, hot springs? Is it possibly a spontaneously occurring crystal that absorbs energy from natural sources around it–a kind of natural battery?"

"None of the above," Ratchet answered, and now he was definitely looking impressed. Optimus had to work not to smile proudly, although why he was proud was beyond him. He had no part in her intelligence, after all–all he'd done was crash near her. "We find it underground, usually."

"Hmm. That rules out solar radiation, too, although maybe not the influence of a strong magnetic field," she mused. "Any specific kind of planet?"

"Many kinds. There are a lot of us who default to religion to explain that one, too–knowing we would leave Cybertron, those deposits were seeded throughout the universe to fuel us on our travels, that sort of nonsense–but most scientists believe that it's just common." He shrugged, finishing whatever he'd been doing and gathering up his instruments before sitting back to look up at her. "Like carbon–it's everywhere."

"But carbon is a stable molecule," she pointed out. "Unstable matter doesn't tend to last long enough to be common. Entropy, Ratchet. Things like to be simple. What you're describing to me is anything but simple."

He spread his hands. "If it was simple, making it wouldn't be a problem," he said.

She looked excited by the challenge. "Do you have a sample of the crystal?"

He shook his head immediately. "It doesn't exactly travel well," he said, which was the understatement of the aeon.

"That's going to make reverse engineering it that much harder," she said, but she didn't look like the added difficulty was at all off-putting. "You know a lot about this. Is there a way you could transfer that information into a database for me? I don't want to waste time trying things that have already been shown to be ineffective."

Ratchet glanced at Optimus, who shrugged. "It's an element, not technology," he said. "Sharing information on a naturally occurring substance is not prohibited by the Tyrest Accord."

"What's the Tyrest Accord?" Anna asked.

"An interspecies agreement backed by some of the least forgiving law enforcers in the universe," Ironhide answered, face and tone very serious. "Boil it down to its most basic level and the gist is that everyone keeps their technology to themselves. Those who share get emphatically taught not to."

Anna glanced at Optimus as he closed his chestplate again. "Are you considered technology?"

"Very much so," Ratchet told her darkly. "Why do you think I've been trying my best to keep you from seeing what I'm doing here? You _don't_ want to run afoul of the Tyrest Accord, little human. Believe me."

"Inadvertent exposure is not a capital offense," Optimus said when she looked alarmed. "You acted in good faith to save a life. You're not in danger."

She didn't look entirely reassured. "And what about trying to synthesize Energon? That's not going to put my head on some interstellar chopping block, is it? Because while I do want to help you, Optimus, I really don't want to end up on some kind of intergalactic most-wanted list."

"I would never ask you to do anything that would put you in danger," Optimus told her, a little offended that this had to be said out loud. Then again, she'd only known him for a little over a day, and he'd been unconscious for most of that–and that was a startling thought, because it felt like much longer. She didn't know anything of his reputation. Of course she would be cautious. Concerned that he might be taking advantage of her after she'd already done so much for him, Optimus said, "You don't have to do anything with Energon, you know. If don't want to–"

"No, no, I'm dying to try," she interrupted–another thing he wasn't used to, being interrupted. "If you're sure that I'm not going to violate this Tyrest Accord by doing it, I want to do it."

"Then I should have a sample for you in about three hours," Ratchet said. He looked her over with a critical eye. "You look tired. How long has it been since you've shut down and charged?"

One corner of her mouth quirked up in a little half-smile. "We call it sleep, and not since Optimus crashed. And it's not polite to tell a lady that she looks like hell, just so you know."

Optimus sat up, feeling much better, and then reached up to offer his hand to Anna–Ratchet was right, she looked absolutely exhausted, and he didn't want her to have to climb down herself. "Ratchet has never been known for his excessive politeness," he said, and ignored the medic's offended huff as Anna cautiously scooted onto his palm. "I'm sorry I've kept you awake."

"Are you kidding? Who wants to sleep when there are alien robots to talk to?" she retorted, and he smiled. She wrapped her arms around his thumb as he slowly lowered her to the floor, moving carefully so as not to startle her like he had when he'd snatched her away from Jazz. "But I am tired, I won't lie. Do you need anything before I go to sleep?"

All of them shook their heads. She slid out of his hand and yawned, but then she looked up at Optimus and bit her lip again–he was learning that the little gesture seemed to indicate that she was unsure. "Will you still be here when I wake up?" she asked.

"He won't be able to travel for at least another day," Ratchet answered for him. "We'll still be here, human."

"And even if that was not the case, after all you've done for me, I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye," Optimus promised her, and she looked relieved.

"Thanks. Goodnight, then," she said, smiling at them before walking out. Optimus started to send Jazz after her just to ensure that she made it without trouble, but he didn't have to. Jazz was already moving before he even gave the order.

_It's not paranoia,_ Optimus reassured himself. Spilled Energon could be detected in any number of ways, and they already knew the Decepticons were on this planet. If his Autobots had found this place, the Decepticons could, too. He remembered how small and light she felt in his hand.

How very fragile and breakable.

"We do need to leave as soon as you're able, Prime," Ratchet said once she was gone, shaking him from his thoughts. "Whether or not this human can make Energon, we need to find the Allspark before the Decepticons do. As soon as you're fully recovered, we need to go."

"I know," Optimus replied, and this time he was almost expecting the kick the Matrix gave him. _I really wish you'd just _tell_ me what you want,_ he thought at it, but without much hope of a response. "The Allspark is our primary goal on Earth. I haven't lost sight of that, Ratchet."

"Good," Ratchet answered as he transformed into his alt-mode–a Cybertronian ambulance, just as Anna had suggested–and opened his back bay to release a charging cable. Optimus picked it up and attached it to the port at the base of his skull with the ease of long practice as Ratchet's engine started up. The influx of power was instant and far stronger than Anna's makeshift contraption had been and he closed his eyes in relief. "I know you like this human–she's sharp, I'll give her that. But if you want to really show your appreciation to her for saving you, stopping the Decepticons from taking over her world would be a great place to start."

.

**Optimus Prime wishes me to make it clear that he was **_**not**_** flirting with Anna. **

**When asked if she has anything she'd like to say on the matter, Anna merely smiles and doesn't even try to look innocent. **

**Ratchet wishes they'd both knock it off because he has no time for this scrap.**

**Ironhide finds all of the above hilarious as hell.**

**And Jazz really wants a pet.**


	5. Collateral Damage

**Howdy, y'all! Didn't realize it had been a whole month since I updated this–where the slag did February go?! So, thanking my reviewers–MiniAjax, liv cahill (Jazz is like a toddler, he really wants a pet but probably shouldn't have one, right?), Teddy Bear 007 (me too), Muirgen79, Teletraan-1 (I do love me some banter, not gonna lie, lol), Amelia St. Claire, SunnySides (I need more information on this robot bulldog IMMEDIATELY, I couldn't find anything about it with google, TELL ME MORE, I DEMAND IT), himelove22, Isobel, Answerthecall, Black Raven Wolf, random lurker (the Tyrest Accord is a big part of the More Than Meets the Eye comics series, and is definitely worth looking up–Ultra Magnus is one of the enforcers and, well, it's just a big, BIG deal. And you would be right about Alias totally violating the Tyrest Accord except for one thing… they didn't give Autobot technology to the humans, they used it to STEAL a human. That's their story and they're sticking to it, dammit, lol! Thanks for such a lovely comment!), and Lunessa Mysteria!**

**Now for a new chapter… hope y'all like it!**

.

Three hours later almost to the second, Anna walked back out toward the barn. The sun was just starting to rise, bathing the sky in soft blues and violets–no pinks or golds yet. Those would come later. She loved sunrises.

She wondered what sunrise looked like on Cybertron.

The last twenty-four hours hardly seemed real. Surely things like this didn't really happen. It wasn't really possible that she could get off work on a Friday afternoon, go out to happy hour with her team, and come home with plans no bigger than whether or not to see a movie on Saturday, and suddenly have an alien robot crash-land practically in her lap. Surely it wasn't really possible that his alien robot friends had arrived and now her barn had been taken over by a freaking _alien robot medic_ who had turned it into some kind of alien robot hospital. Surely it wasn't really possible that those alien robots could transform into seemingly normal human vehicles, hiding in plain sight.

It was possible that she was a bit hung up on the whole _alien robot _thing, but who could blame her? This kind of thing only happened in movies–crazy B-grade scifi, not even the good movies with the multi-million dollar special effects budgets.

But this was no movie, and the enormous, scorched crater in the previously grassy clearing between her house and the barn was no movie set.

The almost-identical twin truck currently parked beside hers in the driveway was no prop.

And the just-darkening bruises down the entire left side of her body, finger-marks from a hand much larger than she was, were certainly no special effect. She winced a little, rubbing the worst one on her hip, and made a mental note never to mention these to Optimus Prime. He'd been so worried when he opened his hand and looked down at her that she knew he hadn't meant to hurt her, and her mind kept returning not to the shock and pain of his unexpected grab, but to his instant willingness to put himself between her and danger.

To how safe she'd felt cradled against his solid metal chest.

To the light, so-very-careful caress of one giant fingertip down her arm when she'd been afraid.

For such an enormously strong being, he was actually surprisingly gentle. The dichotomy he presented fascinated her. He had no need to ask her for anything–it was beyond obvious that she was completely at his mercy should he decide to compel her compliance, but instead, he'd worried about accidentally harming her during his near-fatal crash, and spoken of being in her debt, and vowed that she would never come to harm by his hand.

But then his friends had arrived, and they were not merely 'friends.' NASA attracted loads of military employees. Even before Optimus had introduced them with their clearly martial titles, she'd recognized the bearing.

And that enormous gun Jazz had shoved in her face had been just a bit of a giveaway, too.

Optimus said they were here for peaceful purposes, but they were clearly well equipped to fall back on force if it became necessary. Gentle or not, he commanded a force of vastly powerful beings, and just because he'd been nice to her didn't automatically mean they had humanity's best interests at heart.

Anna had never been stupid. Jazz's first reaction to seeing her near Optimus Prime's spilled Energon had been to draw a weapon and she would be a fool not to keep that in mind. She could be as fascinated with Optimus as she wanted, but she couldn't afford to let that fascination make her blind to the possibility of danger.

The sound of voices coming through the still-open barn doors caught her attention as she approached the barn, and she identified Jazz and Ratchet by their voices. Her footsteps slowed when she noticed that they were speaking English now instead of that strangely beautiful alien robot _(yeah, not gonna stop being hung up on that anytime soon)_ language they'd all been speaking earlier. She was near the generators now and she stopped behind them–not hiding, really, but not standing right out in the open, either.

"… sure likes that funny little creature, doesn't he?" Jazz was saying in an amused tone, and Anna realized with a start that they were talking about _her._

Clearly they hadn't expected her to return so soon, but she'd never been able to sleep when she was excited about a project, and this was the most exciting thing she'd ever experienced.

"Yeah, and I don't like it," Ratchet replied. Anna moved to the other side of the generator where she could get a partial view through the window and saw the two Autobots standing beside Prime's prone form–she couldn't see his face, but his stillness made it seem likely that he was in recharge. "It could've done anything to him before we got here. He hasn't acted like this since… well, since before you were sparked, Jazz."

"Well, yeah, but he hasn't been hurt this bad in a long time, either," Jazz said, crossing his arms. "She pulled his ass out of the fire, literally from what I understand. He's grateful. He'll be his old serious self when he wakes up, Ratchet, just you wait and see."

Ratchet snorted. "I've patched him up from worse and he hasn't gone into grinning and laughing fits then," he grumbled. "Slag, he was still Pax last time I saw him laugh. I haven't seen him smile so much since before the Matrix chose him."

Jazz chuckled. "Didn't know he _could_ smile, honestly," he said, and Anna frowned. She didn't understand all of what they were saying, but this didn't sound like the same person–robot–whatever, it didn't sound like the same Optimus she'd met. "Let alone laugh. Lighten up, will ya? It's probably good for him!"

Ratchet poked the smaller bot in the chest with one finger. "I will not _lighten up_, and you shouldn't either," he said, jabbing to emphasize every word. "I'm telling you that something's not right here. He's not thinking straight and there's no medical reason for it. We need to find out what's going on here and take appropriate action, do you understand me?"

Anna's heart began to pound as Jazz went serious. He stared up at the medic for a long moment before quietly saying, "You heard Optimus, Ratchet. He gave her his word that we wouldn't harm her. He might be acting a little strangely, but that was still the word of a Prime."

Ratchet growled in clear frustration. "Why does everyone immediately assume I'm talking about murder?" he said, throwing up his hands. "Has everyone forgotten that I'm a medic? I am not suggesting we, I don't know, go drown her in her pond or something! But _containment_ isn't harm, is it? She has enough information to seriously hurt us and Optimus tied our hands with that damn peace bond. She could be perfectly safe and unharmed and _in custody where she can't endanger us._ Why am I the only one who thinks that taking some precautions is a reasonable step? For Primus' sake, Jazz, you've been trying to get us to make her our pet since we rolled up here! Are you seriously against this now?"

Her heart wasn't just pounding now, it felt like it was trying to crawl right up her neck and strangle her. Anna's feet were moving before her brain fully formed the thought and she was halfway back to her house before realizing she had even started to retreat. The two Autobots were still arguing and she thought they probably hadn't seen her, but the sky was getting brighter with each passing second and they could look up at any time.

She turned and ran, bursting through her kitchen door and barely stopping herself from slamming it behind her. The last thing she needed was one of them to hear that and realize she'd overheard their plans to lock her away.

Or worse, make her their _pet_. She could think of few things more demeaning than that. Jazz's frequent jokes about "keeping her" didn't seem quite so funny anymore. Would they expect her to do tricks? Entertain them for her food? That wasn't technically _harm_, but she would still rather die than live like that.

She forced herself to move. She couldn't cower against the door–the house wasn't safe. Even the smallest of them could easily tear the roof off and pluck her out. Anna raced through the house and grabbed her purse and keys–everything else could be replaced–and then ran out the front door.

Ten seconds later she was in her truck, speeding down the driveway with no firm destination in mind other than _away from here._ She clutched the steering wheel tight, keeping an eye on her rearview mirror and praying to a God she'd never much believed in that she could get onto the highway without them coming after her.

She did, but her fear only grew. Every silver car made her tense. Every ambulance made her shudder. "Anna, you are so stupid," she whispered to herself as she drove as fast as she dared through the light early-morning traffic, heading toward Houston with only the vague hope of losing herself in the enormous city. "_So fucking stupid!"_

"Oh, I dunno, you seem pretty damn smart to me," a voice answered from her truck speakers, and Anna screamed. Acting purely on panic, she slammed on the brakes and wrenched the wheel hard.

Nothing happened. The truck continued straight down the lane without so much as a wobble. "Well, now that you did that, I'm not so sure," Ironhide said dryly. "You do realize you could've flipped me with that, right?"

Anna scooted across the seat to the passenger side and tried to throw the door open. It only opened an inch before slamming closed again. The _thunk_ of the lock was very loud. "Primus, girl, what's got into you? Are you _trying_ to kill yourself?" Ironhide asked, but Anna was kicking at the window now with all her strength. If she could break that, she could jump out–yes, she was going fast, but maybe if she rolled when she hit– "Hey, _human!" _Ironhide shouted through the speakers, loud enough to hurt. "You're not going to hurt me, so talk to me. The hell is your problem right now?"

"Let me out!" she screamed, kicking the dash now, the steering wheel, anything she could reach. "Where are you taking me?"

"Girl, you're the one driving," Ironhide said, and she stopped and gave the empty driver's seat a look. He seemed to see it–how could he see inside himself?–and said, "Okay, yeah, I took over when you flipped out cuz I'm not gonna let you wreck me, but if you calm the hell down and tell me what's got into you, you can drive again. Okay?"

"If you want me to calm down, _let me out,_" Anna bit out.

And to her complete shock, Ironhide immediately exited the highway and pulled over. As soon as he came to a stop beside a field, he popped open the passenger door. "Please don't run off," he said.

But Anna was already gone. "Scrap," he muttered, and she heard the door slam as she vaulted the barbed wire fence with the ease of one who had been doing it since her earliest childhood. "Anna, come back here and tell me what happened!" Ironhide shouted after her as she ran across the pasture.

She didn't run for long, though, before a combination of the bruises and nearly tripping on the uneven ground made her stop. Anna stood there, holding her aching side and panting, and she wasn't even surprised when the truck rumbled up beside her and parked. She didn't bother running again–there was nowhere to go out here.

Ironhide didn't say anything when he stopped beside her. The truck just sat there, idling, patient, and Anna sat down in the grass and put her head on her knees and cried.

There was really no escape.

"Aw, hell, would you stop that? That's just pitiful," Ironhide groaned, and she almost laughed at that–apparently the male response to tears transcended species. "Come on, Anna, talk to me. Last time I saw you, you were giving Ratchet hell like a pro. What happened to spook you so bad?"

She didn't pick up her head. "Did you smash through the fence?" It wasn't really important, but it was easier than answering his question.

"Nah, waited for a break in the traffic and stepped over when no one was there to see," Ironhide answered, and she had to smile at that. He seemed to accept her wish to talk about other things because he asked a question of his own. "Why were you limping?"

The bruises, but she wasn't going to tell him that in case word of it got back to Optimus. Then again, if she got out of this with only a few bruises, she'd count herself lucky. "Ratchet wants to lock me up," she said instead.

"No, he doesn't," he replied immediately.

She still didn't look up at the truck. "Yeah, he does. I heard him myself–he was trying to convince Jazz to do it. He thinks I did something to Optimus. Says I know enough to hurt you and I should be contained."

Ironhide groaned. "All right, now I understand why you freaked out, but Anna, no one's gonna lock you up. Optimus promised we wouldn't do anything to hurt you."

She sniffled and rubbed her temples where a headache was beginning to throb. "Ratchet said it wouldn't be hurting me, that I could be perfectly safe and unhurt and still be in custody."

"_No one's locking you up,"_ Ironhide repeated firmly. She finally looked at him and he made a pained sound. "Your eyes are still leaking. I thought you were going to stop that."

She laughed and wiped her eyes with a sleeve. "You men are all alike. A few tears and you go to pieces," she said, but her heart wasn't in it.

"Yeah, but can you really blame me? I'm metal, I could rust," Ironhide teased back gently. He opened the driver's door invitingly. "You don't have to, and I'm not going to make you, but if you want to get in, I'll take you wherever you want to go. And I'll leave you there, too, if you really want me to. I'll _prove_ to you that we're not going to make you a prisoner."

Anna stood up, wincing a little, but she didn't climb in. "You said Optimus promised, but you didn't hear Ratchet and Jazz talking," she said, not quite daring to take Ironhide's word for it. "They sounded like they'd really like to take matters into their own hands. How long until they decide he's not competent to have made that promise and outvote him on this?"

"There's no voting to be done, girl," Ironhide told her. When she raised an eyebrow doubtfully, he sighed as though pointing out the painfully obvious. "Optimus is our Prime. What he says, goes, and he's given you his protection. That means you've got _all_ our protection and yes, that includes Jazz and Ratchet. There's no voting and no one's locking you up–that's a promise from _me_. I swear on my spark, Anna, you are the safest human on the planet right now."

She cupped her right hand around her bruised upper arm, remembered how Optimus had snatched her away from danger and put himself in her place without a second thought. Protection and harm all in one instant–one intentional, one not. "Collateral damage," she whispered, unaware that she'd said it aloud until Ironhide answered.

"We're not going to be here long enough for you to be in that kind of danger," he said firmly. "I neutralized the Energon spill while you were sleeping and Ratchet will have totally decontaminated your barn by the time we leave. We know how to leave no trace of our presence behind–it's kind of what we do. When Optimus is healed up and we roll out of here, we will ensure that we've left nothing behind that will ever connect you to us_. _Our main goal right now is to get Prime up and get out of here without impacting your life any more than we already have. All we want is for you to be able to go back to your life, safe and free and whole. All right?"

Anna wished he was in his robot form now because it was impossible to read expressions from a truck, and she would dearly love to see his face to gauge his sincerity. But he _sounded_ so earnest, so sincere, that it was hard not to trust him.

She hesitated long enough that he spoke again. "In case you're wondering, Optimus is awake and wondering where you are. All I've said is that you're with me. Should I tell him that you're not coming back? I only ask because earlier you seemed pretty concerned that he might leave without telling you goodbye."

Anna closed her eyes and rubbed her temples again. She felt like going back home was just asking for trouble, but then again, it wasn't like she could make much of an escape now. Even if Ironhide took her into the city and dropped her off, he would know exactly where he'd left her. If they wanted to get her back, it wouldn't be hard. Optimus had an internet connection in his head and Houston had cameras at every traffic light and ATM and high-rise. If the Autobots decided to do something to her, there was really very little she could do to stop them.

She was in too deep now. Ratchet was right–she already had enough information to harm them, whether she'd intended to learn it or not. She'd brought Optimus back from the brink of death. She'd talked to him, accepted a promise from him and given him one of her own to help synthesize Energon if she could. Even if she tried to go for help, who would believe her? It was too late to try to take it all back.

Her chance to get out of this had been when Optimus had first crashed, and she'd made her choice when she'd hooked him up to her tractor and towed him into her barn to try to repair him.

No, before than, when she'd listened to the instinct to help a living being in pain and had run for the fire extinguisher.

Her choices here weren't _go back_ or _get away._ Her choices were really _trust that Optimus meant what he said, and learn everything you can, and get the most out of this incredible experience as possible before they leave and it's over, _or _run away with the full knowledge that you're not going to stop them from doing whatever they want to you, and miss out on what might be the most amazing thing to ever happen to you._

She rubbed the bruise again, thinking of the difference between intentions and results.

"I'll go back," she sighed at last, and got back into the truck.


	6. Convince Me

**Alias**** (my other Transfic that will not END) is not playing nicely with me right now, so here, have a long chapter to this one. And someone find my muse and slap her around for a while until she behaves, will you? All she wants to do is write diabetes-inducingly schmoopy Optimus/Alias fluff and is pretty much refusing to concentrate on anything else. **_***le sigh***_** I mean, yeah, it's fun and all, but we should probably move on, right? **

_***moar le sigh***_

**In related news, "schmoop" is a fantastic word. **

.

There was too much traffic on the highway for him to transform and step over the fence again, so Ironhide made his way along the fence line until they came to a gate that Anna could open for him. She'd taken the passenger seat after locking the gate again behind them instead of the driver's side. Ironhide waited a moment to see if she'd change her mind, but when it became clear that she had no intention of driving, he'd darkened the windows and pulled onto the access road without pressing her.

She didn't speak as he took the next ramp onto the highway again. Ironhide didn't like it–he barely knew her, true, but only a few hours ago she'd been driving Ratchet crazy and teasing Optimus into uncharacteristic laughter, and her silence worried him. He sought for some way to break the tension but he couldn't think of what to say.

After a few miles, she did it for him. "I'm sorry I kicked you."

He gave a silent sigh of relief. "Don't be. You had reason, and you didn't hurt anything." She went back to staring out the window and he added, "Or maybe I should say, you didn't hurt _me._ You never did tell me why you were limping. Did you damage yourself when you were trying to get out?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine. The ground was uneven and hard to run over, that's all."

He wasn't convinced–he'd dealt with enough Autobots who tried to hide wounds from their commander to know the difference between limping and stumbling–but he let it drop for now, just glad that she was speaking to him. Then he thought of another reason why she might've been having trouble running. "You didn't rest for very long. Aren't you tired?"

Anna shrugged. "Honestly? Yeah, I'm exhausted, but I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to miss anything, just in case y'all left before I woke up."

"Optimus and Ratchet both promised you that we wouldn't do that."

"Actually, I think Ratchet would like to get Optimus away from here as soon as possible," she contradicted him.

"Well, I won't argue that, but he gave his word," Ironhide pointed out, but when she shrugged, he realized that she didn't have any idea how seriously the Autobots took that. Then again, why would she? She had never even heard of them before yesterday. "Look, I know you don't really know us, but when Optimus Prime makes a promise, he doesn't break it. And I know you and Ratchet haven't exactly gotten off on the best foot, but he's the same way. When we give our word, Anna, we keep it."

Suddenly she laughed. "Well, I only have your word for that, Ironhide," she teased, and he chuckled. _That_ was more what he'd come to expect from her.

"Yeah, yeah, smartass," he said, and she laughed again.

She turned in the seat, no longer staring out the window. "You're right, though. I _don't_ know you. Tell me about the Autobots, Ironhide. If you want me to really trust you, convince me."

Ironhide hesitated for a moment, trying to decide what to say. Ratchet had mentioned limiting her exposure and Ironhide had to admit that it was a wise recommendation, but then again, Optimus had answered her questions without any hesitation at all while Ratchet had been repairing him. Ironhide had followed his Prime's lead in situations far more hazardous than this, but Ratchet was right. Optimus acted strangely around her. It was a kind of _strange_ Ironhide could get used to–none of them had seen him relax enough to laugh in so long that they'd all but forgotten he'd ever known how to do it–but until they were sure that it wasn't because of some hidden brain injury or a side effect of her improvised first aid, it would be wise to be cautious.

Then again, if they were going to convince her to keep the secrets she'd learned, she needed a reason beyond some vague threat of _keep quiet or else_. Fear was far more likely to make her run than to lead to trust, as this morning had very well proved.

And the Autobots also couldn't very well protect her from the Decepticons if she ran at the sight of them.

Finally Ironhide decided to answer, but cautiously. "The Autobots are a faction of Cybertronians who are dedicated to peace, and protecting the galaxy," he said as he navigated the light Sunday-morning traffic. "Optimus Prime is our leader."

"Don't you mean commander?" she interrupted, and when he paused, she added, "The Autobots are an army, right?"

"No, not quite," Ironhide disagreed, even though an argument could be made for that considering how much of their time was spent fighting. Still, that wasn't all they were. "You've met so few of us and yes, this is a forward team, mostly consisting of warriors, so I understand where you got that impression. Optimus _is_ our commander, but he's more than that, just as the Autobots are more than just a group of fighters. There are Autobot scientists, and artists, and diplomats, and–and medics, like Ratchet," he said, seeing a chance to try to alleviate her fear of him. "He _can_ fight, but he doesn't unless he's forced to, and it kills him to do it. His driving purpose is to heal others, not harm them."

She didn't comment on that. "Warriors exist to make war. Who are you protecting and from what?" she asked.

Ironhide considered not answering that question, but she had to be warned that there were other Cybertronians here who wouldn't be bound by Optimus Prime's peace bond. Not every Transformer could be trusted. If Megatron's forces found her, she needed to know that she would be in danger. "Another faction of Cybertronians called the Decepticons. They follow a despot called Megatron."

"And would this Megatron describe Optimus as a despot?"

Ironhide mentally gaped for a moment at that unexpected question. She was sharp, all right, asking questions pointed enough to cut, and while none of them had simple answers, this one was at least clear. "Since Megatron has vowed to subjugate the galaxy and Optimus Prime is the biggest obstacle in his way, I don't want to repeat how he describes Optimus."

She drew a sharp breath. "Subjugate the _galaxy?_" she echoed in disbelief. "The size of an army that would take is… How many of you _are _there?"

He groaned. "Primus, I don't know," he said, wondering just when he'd lost control of this conversation. He'd only intended to tell her enough about the Autobots to reassure her!

"Millions? Billions?" she pressed.

"Trillions, probably, at least at the start. Our kind don't die easy but we've lost a lot," Ironhide reluctantly guessed, and she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with a shaking hand. Damn it, this was the _opposite_ of reassuring, and he tried to gloss over it. "Look, your planet isn't especially significant, okay? I doubt they'll bother the Earth."

She gave the dash a quelling look. "Don't do that, Ironhide. I'm not stupid. If the Earth held nothing of significance, Optimus wouldn't be here. Leaders go to important places."

He sighed. She had a point. "Okay, yeah, what we're here for _is_ important," he admitted. "And we really need to get to it first or some bad things could happen. But once we have it, we're going to leave, Anna. Optimus isn't the type of Prime who conquers alien worlds, and the reason we exist is to keep the Decepticons from doing it, either. Optimus lives by one guiding principle–he says _freedom is the right of all sentient beings._ He'll do whatever it takes to safeguard humanity's freedom from Megatron's tyranny."

She covered her face with her hands for a moment, then looked up again and sighed. "You know, every time I think I'm getting a handle on this, it just gets deeper and deeper. I've gone from helping one alien robot to learning that there's an enormous interplanetary war going on that humanity knows nothing about."

"We hope to keep anyone else on your planet from having to find out about it, either," Ironhide said, wishing he could promise her that the war wouldn't touch her. "That's why only five of us came. We don't _want_ to draw attention to your world."

"How did you discover where Optimus had crashed?" she asked, surprising him with the change of subject.

But he didn't want to discuss the war with the Decepticons with her any further so he embraced it–anything to keep from having to tell her just how long this war had been going on, and how many planets they'd failed to keep out of it. "Refined Energon has a specific, distinctive energy signature," he explained. "If it's unshielded, it can be detected even from hundreds of miles away. When we lost Optimus, we started scanning for it. We picked up the readings from the Energon that Optimus lost before you repaired him and we got here as fast as we could."

She chewed on a fingernail. "And it took you a day to get here," she said softly, almost as though to herself. "And you said that you neutralized the Energon spill while I was resting, but that means that it was out there like a beacon for nearly a day and a half. These Decepticons are probably able to pick up on it too, right? When they figure out that I helped save their number one enemy's life, should I be expecting an unpleasant visit?"

Okay, so she hadn't really changed the subject at all. Ironhide decided to just forget his cautious approach and answer normally–besides, it wasn't like he'd been doing a very good job of reassuring her with half-answers until now. "I'm not going to tell you there's no chance of it, but we don't think that's likely. We were looking for him. They're looking for something else. Still, that's part of the reason that we're not leaving just yet. If they do show up, we'll take care of them. You saved our Prime's life, Anna. The least we can do in return is ensure your safety."

She visibly relaxed at this, which made no sense to him until she spoke. "Thank you for not giving me a pretty lie. The truth is always better," she said softly.

"Yeah, well, I don't think I could've fooled you anyway. You're too damn sharp for your own good," he grumbled. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

"All the time," she said with a crooked smile as he exited the highway. She bit her lip and rubbed a hand over her leg in an unconscious nervous tic the nearer they got to her driveway, then winced and stopped. Ironhide's suspicions grew, but she spoke again before he could ask her about whatever injury she was clearly hiding. "You said that Optimus called you to ask where I was. What did you tell him about why I accidentally botnapped you?"

Ironhide chuckled at the description–yeah, he hadn't been expecting to get jolted out of recharge by her jumping in and driving away like all the hounds of hell were at her heels, but it wasn't like she could have really made him go anywhere he didn't want to go. "Nothing." When the hand on her leg curled into a fist and she looked out the window, surprisingly tense, he added, "What do you want me to say?"

She didn't say anything for a long moment. "Something other than _the stupid little human got spooked and ran away_, maybe," she finally answered.

Ironhide slowed down. He could understand her desire to save face, but he wasn't quite sure what to say to her–he could tell her that he really did think she was very smart, but that wasn't quite the point. She _was_ small and pitifully weak compared to them so he thought she'd actually had pretty good reason to get spooked, but that didn't sound very comforting.

Finally he said, "Okay, look. You know what my main function is? He calls me his weapons tech, but I'm really Prime's bodyguard–and keeping his stubborn, noble chassis safe from threats is a job for ten Autobots, but even getting him to agree to just me was a trick. Anyway, I need to know the area to do my job right. I've got GPS and maps, but none of that helps me spot what's out of the ordinary, or tells me what roads are least likely to be watched by the authorities. I needed to scout. You very kindly offered to help me."

Anna didn't answer right away. She bit her lip again and stared at the scenery rolling by outside. "If that's your job, do you agree with Ratchet that I'm a threat?" she asked quietly.

"No," Ironhide answered without hesitation.

She finally turned away from the window again, her surprise evident. "You didn't even think about it."

"Didn't need to," he said. When she continued to stare, he sighed. "You remember what I just told you my job is? Anna, _you saved my Prime when I couldn't._ Now me, I'm not the trusting sort, but until you actually do something to change my mind, that's more than enough for me."

And that finally seemed to reassure her. She visibly relaxed and closed her eyes. "About what to tell the others… don't lie," she said after a moment, and when he made a surprised sound, she went on, "You're honest, Ironhide–you don't lie worth a damn. It doesn't come naturally to you. I don't want you to do it just to spare my pride. I'll recover."

If he wasn't already impressed with her, that would've done it. "It's your call. I don't mind." She shook her head and he let it go. "You probably should get some rest," Ironhide said as he turned onto her long driveway, concerned by how pale she was after all this excitement. "I know you said you were worried that we'd leave without saying goodbye, but I promise that's not going to happen."

She smiled a little without opening her eyes. "I'll sleep when I'm dead," she said with a shrug.

Ironhide's engine skipped. "Is your health at risk?" he demanded, speeding up. He didn't care that she and Ratchet didn't get along, she was going to get checked out by the medic _right fragging now_. "I _knew_ you were limping! What injuries do you have?"

That got her to open her eyes. "Wait, what?" she asked, bouncing as he sped down the uneven dirt driveway. "What do you mean, injuries?"

"You just said you're dying!"

"But–no I didn't!" she protested. Then she groaned. "Oh, Ironhide, no, no, that's not–_I'll sleep when I'm dead_ just means I'll sleep later, that's all. I'm not dying. I'm fine, perfectly fine."

Ironhide braked a little harder than he normally would have in front of her house, engine revving angrily. He didn't much appreciate being scared like that. "That is a fragging _morbid_ thing to say," he growled at her. "If you don't rest when you're sick or injured, you die _sooner._ Why would you say a thing like that? You might as well say _I want to hurry up and die!_"

Anna opened her mouth, then closed it again as though this question had never occurred to her. "I don't know," she said. "It's just a human expression. I've never really given it any thought."

He grunted, not entirely reassured, but when she opened the door, he didn't protest her getting out. He did, however, send Ratchet a private com as she went into her house. _::Don't get huffy, but I want you to examine the human. I think there might be something wrong with her.::_

_::… and you're going to make this worth my time, how?::_ Ratchet replied and yeah, he was huffy, all right. _::I'm busy with Optimus. Let her see a human medic.::_

And Ironhide thought about telling him _I'll let Prime know you were plotting to lock up his new friend if you don't,_ but he didn't. Instead he said, _::I can sense from here that he's out like a light again and you're not that busy. But I could just tell Optimus my concerns and let him make it an order if that makes you happier.:: _He could very nearly hear the medic's sigh. Before Ratchet could come up with a new protest, Ironhide said, _::Look, I know you don't like her, but she won't be the first patient you've had that you don't like, so suck it up, buttercup. I'm worried.::_

_::Who said I don't like her?::_ Ratchet commed back, and now he'd moved beyond _huffy_ and crossed the border into _cranky_.

Ironhide transformed back to robot mode and rolled his eyes. _::Ratchet, I think there are Decepticons you like more than this human_._::_ he said dryly.

Ratchet came out of the barn and walked over, and yeah, his fists were planted on his hips and his legendary scowl was at least at half-power. _::Being worried because Optimus is severely wounded and we're dependant on the hospitality of an alien who has no reason to be loyal to us doesn't mean I don't _like_ her,::_ he said, and Ironhide raised an eyebrow at him. _::I'm sure she's no more offensive than any other organic life form,::_ he added, and Ironhide started to snap back when he realized the medic was teasing him with that.

"Very funny," he said when the medic stopped beside him and looked around for her. Ironhide hesitated, then said, "She's not going to be real thrilled to see you. Can you try to be a little less terrifying? Call it a personal favor."

"I don't think I owe you a favor," Ratchet said, giving him the full benefit of his glare. "And I haven't done anything to that creature to make her terri–"

"She heard you talking to Jazz," Ironhide interrupted, and the medic fell silent. He glanced down the driveway as though remembering how fast she'd sped off and then groaned.

"Slag," Ratchet muttered.

"Yeah," Ironhide agreed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ratchet sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "Don't look at me like that, Ironhide. Prime nearly died here and I don't want him exerting himself in any way until the repairs have settled. If the Decepticons get word of his condition and attack now… damn it, 'Hide, the three of us aren't enough to protect him and you _know_ he wouldn't stay out of it. Just moving around that much could do the kind of damage to him that I can't fix. I'd keep him down for a week if I thought I could manage it, but we don't have that kind of time and he doesn't have that kind of patience, especially not now that we're so close to the Cube. I've given him a transfusion of repair nanites and all the systems boosters he can handle, but we need at least a day for him to be still and quiet before we can even think about continuing our mission. My only concern is making sure that he gets it. So yeah, I talked to Jazz about keeping the human contained to make sure that she doesn't say anything that could get back to the wrong ears, but if she'd stuck around, she'd have heard Jazz convincing me to _talk_ to her about why it's so important for her to keep her mouth shut instead. I have no plans to do a damn thing to her and she's got nothing to fear from me, all right?"

"All right."

They both turned at the voice. Anna was standing in her doorway–neither of them had noticed her arrival. She looked steadily up at Ratchet and Ironhide saw no trace of her earlier fear. "I understand. I won't say anything to anyone."

The medic glanced at Ironhide, then knelt down to get closer to her level. "Just that easy, huh?"

Anna shrugged. "I wasn't planning on saying anything anyway, Ratchet," she told him, straightening and stepping outside again. When he didn't answer, she explained. "First of all, I already told Optimus that I wouldn't report him to the authorities unless he gave me a reason to do so. And secondly, you might not fully appreciate this, but my job with those primitive Earth robots means that I access with classified information and tech_ every single day._ I know how to keep my mouth shut." Then she smiled. "Anyway, if I started telling people stories of giant alien robots falling from the sky, I'm not all that likely to be taken seriously. I'd be more likely to get locked away for a psych eval than to cause any problems for you."

Ironhide glanced at Ratchet and saw that he hadn't thought of that either. They weren't used to being on worlds that hadn't yet discovered the existence of other life in the galaxy. "All I want is to make sure Optimus has the time he needs to heal," Ratchet told her. "I want my Prime back on his feet in good working order. That's my only goal."

"All right," Anna said again. "Then we have no problem here." She turned and closed the door behind her, then started walking toward the barn.

Ratchet was frowning before she'd taken more than three steps and Ironhide knew he'd seen the same limp he had. "Hold still, human," he said, abruptly stepping in front of her. Anna froze, looking up at him with a resurgence of anxiety in her eyes, but the medic didn't notice. He drew his scanner and swept it over her before she could so much as protest.

Anna yelped. "The hell did you just do to me?" she demanded, rubbing her arms and dancing in place like she'd been doused in icy water.

"Scanned you," Ratchet answered distractedly as he stared at the readout. His frown deepened and he knelt down in front of her again. "Ironhide's right. You _are_ injured. Let me see."

She sent Ironhide a scathing look. "I told you, I'm _fine!_"

Ironhide spread his hands apologetically. "I know what a limp looks like," he told her, and she gave him a scowl that would've put Ratchet's to shame.

Then she turned back to Ratchet and glared up at him. "All right, you want to be nosy? Fine," she snapped, and shoved up one sleeve before lifting the hem of her shirt to show her abdomen. Purple bruises showed in both places, and Ironhide remembered her rubbing her hip and leg and guessed that they were probably bruised, too. "Happy now?" she spat, jerking her clothes back in place.

Ironhide shook his head and Ratchet didn't look particularly happy, either. He was pretty sure that the medic had recognized the shape of Prime's fingers, too. "I could–" Ratchet began.

But Anna cut him off. "You could what? They're just bruises. They'll get better on their on in a few days, and you know what? They're _nothing _compared to staring into the barrel of Jazz's gun," she told them in a low hiss. "Optimus didn't mean to hurt me, so don't you say a _word_ to him about this, either one of you. You got that? All it would do is make him feel guilty and I'm really damn glad he did what he did. I'm keeping secrets for you and you can damn well keep one for me in return."

"Understood," Ironhide said and Anna nodded sharply at him, but she wasn't done with Ratchet yet.

"And don't you ever scan me again without asking first," she told him, rubbing her arms again. "That's really rude and it feels _bizarre_."

Ratchet actually grinned. "Look at you, laying down the law," he chuckled. Her glare sharpened again and he held up one hand. "Easy there, scary human. I want to scan you one more time to make sure you have no broken bones. May I have your permission, please?" he asked with excessive politeness.

Anna rolled her eyes at his tone. "Nothing's broken."

"Oh, so you know more than the medic now, do you?" Ratchet shot back.

She raised an eyebrow. "Last I checked, I'm not a robot. What do you know about how I work?"

"Clearly not a damn thing," Ironhide muttered, and didn't bother to hide his grin when Ratchet sent him an unimpressed look.

"You aren't the first organic I've ever encountered," Ratchet told her. "Nor the first I've treated. I'll agree not to tell Optimus about your injuries if you let me make sure that they're not severe. It's the best deal you're gonna get," he added when she hesitated. Finally she sighed and nodded, and Ratchet waved the scanner over her again.

Even though she was expecting it this time, Anna still shuddered. "God, that's just… ugh," she said, shaking herself as the energy wave passed over her. Then her face changed. "How does that work? Can I take a look at that thing?"

Ratchet looked at the readout and then snapped it closed. "No broken bones," he said, stashing the scanner back into his subspace. "And no, you can't have a look at it. The Tyrest Accord, remember? I'm actually looking out for you, believe it or not," he added when she started to protest.

She sighed. "Yeah, I know, I know," she grumbled, starting to walk toward the barn again.

Ironhide and Ratchet fell in beside her. "And on that note, you can't take anything you've learned back to your NASA," the medic told her.

"Yeah, figured that out already, thanks," she said, still clearly cranky at not getting to examine Ratchet's scanner. "I don't want to be on an interstellar hit list. But I'm curious by nature and this is really hard for me. It's like being shown the most interesting toy ever and then getting told I can't play with it."

"Sorry," Ironhide said, feeling bad for her. "Our tech and your tech have to stay separate."

"I know," she sighed again. "But can't you guys, I dunno, adopt me or something? I don't want to be Jazz's pet, but how about you make me an honorary Autobot so I can play with all your cool gadgets?"

Ratchet shuddered at the very thought. "Primus forbid," he whispered to Ironhide. "Can you imagine if we really did keep her around?"

"Yeah, Optimus might actually remember that he knows how to laugh," Ironhide replied dryly. "What a horrible fate. However would the Autobots cope with a cheerful leader?" When Ratchet sent him a quelling look, he grinned. "We can't all be as grumpy as you, Ratchet. You'd lose your unique charm."

"Just so you know, I'm taking notes for the next time you're wounded," Ratchet returned, and Ironhide just laughed.


End file.
